Duality
by MagicMan01
Summary: Seven years to the day that he was put in prison, Beyond Birthday makes his bloody escape and intends on exacting his revenge on L once and for all. Setting his sights on the country of Japan for his next string of crimes, he challenges L, the Japanese NPA, and even the entire world to stop him from truly becoming the world's greatest criminal. LightxL, MelloxMatt, NearxSayu.
1. Jailbreak

**If you're not aware of it already, I have OCD and am **_**extremely **_**anal retentive when it comes to details and factual things in my work. I did a **_**shit ton **_**of research in order for everything in this story to be as accurate as I can possibly make it. Of course, it's just a fan fiction story and obviously isn't going to be the kind of quality of an actual professional novel - especially when it comes to the aforementioned details - but a guy can still try, right? I just thought I'd throw that out there so you aren't surprised by the many A/N's and explanations dealing with things in the story to come.**

**And in case you weren't able to discern from the summary, this is going to be a **_**very **_**violent story pretty much the whole way through. Beyond Birthday is, after all, a psychopathic serial killer with absolutely no remorse for his actions or regard for human life, so it basically goes without saying that he's going to do a **_**lot **_**of merciless killing throughout the course of this fic. If you don't believe you feel comfortable with a high amount of graphic violence or the concept of a serial killer on the loose and murdering innocent people - as well as not being completely "there" in the sanity department, if you get my drift - then you should **_**not**_** read this story. But for those of you who do, when you're finished with this chapter, please leave me a review with your thoughts on it; it would be much appreciated.**

**In the novel, Beyond was arrested by Naomi Misora on August 22, 2002. The date of this first chapter occurs exactly seven years later, and my reasoning behind this is because he wants to make the date of his prison escape significant in a sort of ironic way; seven years ago he was captured, and now exactly seven years later he's escaping. Also, this was the same year that Light joined the NPA in the manga. I originally wanted to have this story take place earlier in time, but Light would have been too young to be part of the NPA and wouldn't have been able to investigate the case like he would with the help of an entire police organization backing him up (and by "case," I mean the string of murders Beyond is going to commit later on in this fic).**

**Warning: A **_**ton **_**of bloody, graphic violence in this first chapter.**

**-Disclaimer- I claim no ownership to **_**Death Note**_** or any real-life things that are mentioned in this story.**

* * *

**Chapter 1 - Jailbreak**

_Crescent City, California - United States of America_

_Pelican Bay State Prison - Security Housing Unit_

_August 22, 2009_

_2232 hours_

A man wearing a white jumpsuit with the words "CDC Prisoner" on the back slowly paced back and forth in the exercise room of the Security Housing Unit he was confined in. He didn't pay much attention to the glass-plated ceiling above him, nor the security camera on the ceiling watching his every move. Most other prisoners in the SHU of Pelican Bay State Prison relished any amount of sunlight bestowed upon them during their court-mandated ninety minutes of daily exercise here in the exercise room, but the man currently in it rather preferred the darkness. He had always liked the dark more than the light. He also liked thunderstorms, which was rather convenient for him because one such form of weather was raging above him right now even as he paced.

Lightning bolts flashed and zipped through the dark night sky. Large cumulonimbus clouds floated ominously thousands of feet above ground level, dumping buckets of rain on the earth below. Said raindrops pelted the ceiling above the man, gravity pulling them down and off of the glass in multiple directions; some made it through the small hole in the ceiling where the security camera was mounted, falling through the empty space and pelting the hard concrete of the ground twenty feet below. Loud claps of thunder boomed and shook the turbulent atmosphere.

But none of these things fazed the man, even when a few solitary drops of water gently splattered onto him.

This man was about average height and fairly thin, with large dark eyes and long, unkempt black hair. His skin was a pale white and decorated with permanent scars from the self-inflicted third degree burns of seven years ago. He was slightly muscular, though this couldn't be seen by the average person because of the clothing he wore. He was also barefoot, as he didn't wish to bother with any of the corrections officers having to search his shoes every time he left or entered his cell; the less they interacted with him and touched him, the better.

This man's name was Beyond Birthday, and quite frankly, he wasn't even supposed to be alive.

Seven years ago, he had almost gotten away with the perfect crime; the murder of three innocent people and then his own (attempted) suicide. He had been within mere seconds of completing this, too, and would have gotten away with it if it hadn't been for an off-duty female FBI agent named Naomi Misora. If she hadn't burst in with that fire extinguisher when she did, his body would have been incinerated and charred completely black by the time she actually did figure out that he wasn't Rue Ryuzaki the private detective, but rather the serial killer mastermind Beyond Birthday. At that point, a successful autopsy would have been damn near impossible.

His ultimate goal had been to commit a crime that could never be solved, not even by the world's greatest detective: L.

But L had beaten him. He had been beaten, foiled, and utterly humiliated by the world's greatest detective in his attempt to truly become the world's greatest _criminal_. He had been so _close_, too...

And now, here he was in Pelican Bay serving a life sentence for three counts of first degree murder and various other felonious charges. Why the state hadn't decided to execute him by lethal injection was beyond him, but he was most certainly bored here. He often had dreams of decapitating the judge who had banished him to this hellhole and storing her head in a freezer for preservation. The warden, too.

But he would soon have his revenge. He had waited seven years to the day for redemption and absolutely no one was going to get in his way. In one minute's time, he was going to break out of Pelican Bay State Prison and begin to exact his revenge on L.

Seven years in solitary confinement gave a man a lot of time to think, and Beyond was quite the thinker. His level of intelligence rivaled that of the great detective himself, and though mentally unstable, he was by no means any less than absolutely brilliant. After A's suicide due to his inability to handle the pressures of being L, Beyond was the obvious next choice for the position, and he came through with flying colors.

But even after the many thorough background checks and mental tests he had been subjected to, no one was able to see the signs. No one could have ever guessed that he would grow up to be the infamous serial killer that he now was.

He paused in his movements and froze in place when he heard light tapping on the glass window of the metal door behind him. He slowly turned to face the door and saw the man on the other side of it addressing him with a gruff expression. He mentally scoffed, internally laughing at his futile attempts to look tough and threatening. If anything, it was adorable, really.

"All right, Birthday, your time's up," the corrections officer announced. "You know the drill."

Beyond didn't even blink, simply turning his back to the door and extending his arms side by side behind his back. He heard the electronic whir of the door as it opened and felt the presence of the two guards behind him. The guard who had just spoken to him was getting out his pair of handcuffs to restrain him with for the walk back to his cell as part of standard procedure. They clicked open and he felt the cold metal clamp down and around his thin wrists, holding them in place like vises as the corrections officer who owned them tightened them as far as they could possibly go - and _then_ some - like he usually did.

However, what the officer didn't notice was how the man in front of him tensed his muscles and prepared them for quick acrobatic movement. Without any kind of warning or telltale sign, Beyond sharply inhaled as he suddenly sprinted for the wall only a few feet in front of him. The officer didn't have time to grab hold of the chain linking the two cuffs together, as he was expecting Beyond to simply turn and leave for him and the other officer to follow him out of the exercise room as he always did.

Beyond's bare feet connected solidly against the wall and he smoothly ran up it at a near-ninety degree angle, getting a few good feet up its length before kicking off and doing a backflip in midair. While still in hang time, he acrobatically maneuvered his legs back and under the handcuffs, repositioning them from being behind his lower back to now in front of his waist. He registered the shouts and commands of the pair of guards below him as he came down, landing hard on his feet and crouching to get low to the ground.

The guards were just pulling out their nightsticks when he rushed them, jumping in midair as he quickly crossed the distance between him and the officer who had cuffed him. He delivered a devastating kick to the man's jaw as he came down and charged into him, slamming him into the concrete wall behind his back. The bulletproof vest he was wearing under his uniform did little to protect him against the impact, leaving him winded and causing him to lose his grip on his nightstick as the weapon clattered to the floor.

The other officer ran straight for him, nightstick raised in the air as she prepared to bring it down on him. But even with his body pressed against the other officer, Beyond was able to catch her leg with a sweeping kick before she got to him, causing her to lose her balance and come crashing to the ground. He felt the officer against him fumbling for something and quickly glanced down to see him reaching for his can of pepper spray.

He smiled, knowing exactly how he could use this to his advantage.

He heard the officer behind him getting to her feet, and when the man in front of him managed to get his spray out, Beyond viciously elbowed him in the nose, breaking it instantly. Immediately after, he grabbed him around the waist and spun him around, getting close up behind him and taking hold of the hand grasping the pepper spray.

Before the female officer had a chance to react, he roughly jammed the male officer's thumb down against the trigger, releasing the contents of the can and spewing them directly into the woman's open eyes. She instantly dropped her nightstick in favor of bringing them up to her face, screaming and collapsing to the floor as the oleoresin capsaicin forced her to close her eyes and irritated her skin. The deranged man cackled wildly at her subdued state, only now realizing just how much he had missed inflicting pain on others like this.

Beyond took the opportunity to twist the guard's hand in such a way to break it, the spray can hitting the floor with a loud clattering sound much as his nightstick had. He had but a moment to scream in agony before Beyond brought his hands in front of the man's throat, jerking them back roughly to choke him with the metal chain connecting the cuffs together. He gagged and gasped for breath, one hand attempting to pry Beyond's hand away from his throat and the other reaching behind him to try and grab at him. It was in vain, though, and soon he was on his knees, Beyond harshly stepping on his back for maximum effect as he pulled up hard on the cuffs to strangle the man even harder. He struggled and moved for several more seconds before gradually slowing down, his attempts and movements weakening.

Shortly later, he went completely limp in Beyond's grasp, arms falling to his sides and head lolling forward as the last breath of life was literally choked out of him. When Beyond noticed the cessation in the guard's struggling and was completely sure he was dead, he released him and allowed his lifeless body to slump forward to the floor. Kneeling beside the man, Beyond quickly searched for the key to his cuffs and when he found them, unlocked them and let them hit the concrete floor with a metallic clinging sound.

He rubbed his reddened wrists as the screams from the other guard reverberated off the thick walls, prompting him to glance to the side to see where the dead guard had dropped his baton. He located it within moments, and smiling wickedly, stood up to weigh the weapon in both of his pale, thin hands. Flipping it once for a sort of stylistic effect, he caught it by the short end behind the side handle and strolled over to the other officer who was still writhing around and screaming as the inflammatory effects from the pepper spray caused her excruciating pain.

Once he reached her, he rolled her over onto her back with his foot, and placing said foot on top of her bulletproof vest and pressing down to hold her still, he raised the nightstick and brought it down onto the woman's head with brutal efficiency. Her skull was instantly fractured and she moaned incessantly as the dual pain combination of the pepper spray and nightstick caused her to begin to lose consciousness. Beyond gave her but a brief moment to recover before repeating the action, hitting her even harder in the same spot that he just had with the bludgeoning weapon in his hand.

He eventually lost track of how many times he struck her, so caught up in his bloodlust that all he heard were the many sickening thuds from the nightstick every time it made contact with her forehead and his own laughter; he didn't even feel the blood splatter onto his white jumpsuit, nor when it coated his face and hand holding the baton every time he bent down to strike the corrections officer. At some point, he realized just how dead she actually was and halted in his actions, bloody nightstick suspended in midair as he slowly came back to reality. He lowered the weapon and observed the damage he'd inflicted upon the now-dead woman lying on the floor in front of him; her forehead was now completely caved in, blood leaking out from the massive wound and staining the gray concrete floor with its red color beneath her dead body. He was also able to see a fair amount of brain matter and skull fragments both in the cavity he'd created in her head and on the floor around it.

He just laughed to himself as he knelt down to quickly remove the woman's bulletproof vest, undoing the top half of his bloodstained jumpsuit so he could slip it on underneath. The regular guards didn't carry firearms, but the vest would definitely come in handy for any damage they tried to do to his midsection when backup undoubtedly arrived to try and stop him. "Try" was the key word there.

He also made sure to grab both nightsticks and a can of pepper spray, not stupid or (quite) crazy enough to go up against numerous highly trained corrections officers completely unarmed with only a bulletproof vest for protection. Before he left, he stopped at the door and slowly glanced up at the security camera mounted to the ceiling. He smiled widely at it and waved to whoever was on the other side almost like a child might do to a closed circuit television camera in a convenient store right before he left the exercise room.

As he exited the room and entered the corridor, he was immediately greeted by the cheering and loud bangs on cell doors from the other prisoners in his section of the SHU. Apparently, they must have heard and/or seen what he'd done in the exercise room and taken a liking to it. He raised his thin eyebrows for a moment before grinning and waving to them, feeling like a Hollywood movie star on a red carpet for a big premiere. He blew kisses at them and did several stage bows to show his appreciation.

"Thank you, thank you!" he smiled before pretending to blush and become bashful like a little girl. "Aww, you guys are too kind, really..."

It was only now that he heard the loud, blaring alarms going off throughout the prison. They must have turned them on when he'd killed the pair of guards back in the exercise room. Had he really been so caught up in his excitement that he hadn't even noticed?

This thought was soon derailed by the sound of shouting and feet pounding down the metal stairs, prompting him to look up and see a group of corrections officers rushing down the stairs in full riot gear; it must have been the Security Squad. The prisoners took notice of this and shouted several "boos" and "fuck you's" at them as they halted at the bottom of the stairs, the captain taking a step forward to raise his visor.

"Beyond Birthday!" he shouted. "This is your one and only warning! Drop the weapons, put your hands above your head and get down on the floor _now_!"

"Ooh, that sounded like a threat!" Beyond cooed. "All nine of you against little old me? So unfair!" He then glanced at the other prisoners still in their cells, shrugging his shoulders and raising his arms in a confused-looking expression. "I don't know, guys. What do you all think?"

He was immediately barraged by several loud responses from the other inmates in his section of the SHU, all sounding different but in essence prompting him to do the same thing the others were encouraging.

"Kick their asses, Beyond!"

"Fuck 'em up, man!"

"Screw those pigs! Kill 'em, Beyond!"

"Rip their goddamn heads off, Beyond! Kill those motherfuckers!"

"Come on, Birthday! Give us a show!"

Beyond laughed, glancing back at the officers and shrugging his shoulders. "Well, the jury has spoken!" he announced. "Come and get me, then! I'm all yours!" He spread his arms out for emphasis, still grasping both nightsticks tightly in his hands.

The captain of the Security Squad just shook his head as he lowered his visor and put a tighter grip around his baton. "All right, Birthday. You asked for it!" He glanced back at the other eight officers and they all immediately readied themselves for combat against the most dangerous prisoner in Pelican Bay State Prison, adjusting their individual holds on their weapons and checking their gear to make sure all was in order.

When the captain gave the signal, they all ran towards him at once. The corridor wasn't quite wide enough for all of them to charge at him shoulder to shoulder in a single horizontal line, so most of them rushed him in the first frontal wave while a few took up the back. Beyond prepared himself by getting into a defensive position, one baton raised in the air while the other was held against his chest. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes for just a second before snapping them open and attacking first.

The squad captain was closest to him, so when he was only a few feet away, Beyond rolled and quickly struck the back of the man's leg right behind his kneecap where he wasn't protected. He immediately dropped his weapon and fell to the floor, clutching his leg in pain. The others hadn't been expecting a move like that and were somewhat stunned for a brief moment, but that was all Beyond needed to get the upper hand.

He swung outwards with both batons at the same time while still kneeling on the ground, catching two officers in the sides of their legs and causing them to lose their balance. One man rushed him and brought his baton down, but Beyond had enough time to position one of his own in a horizontal block to protect himself and, as soon as they connected, used the other one to catch the officer in the neck where it was minimally protected. He dropped to the ground with a heavy thud as another officer brought up his Taser.

Beyond was able to strike the man's hand with a baton before throwing it at another officer, hitting him in the visor and causing him to stumble backwards. Putting the previously armed officer in a chokehold, Beyond held the nightstick tightly against his throat as he retrieved the man's fallen Taser, quickly scooping it up off the ground and bringing it up to the man's face. Without hesitation, he used the long end of his baton to force the officer's visor open and fired the electrical weapon directly into his eye.

He heard the man scream as the electric current flowed from the weapon and directly into his eye and felt him jerk under his grip as his central nervous system was attacked by the voltage coursing through his body. He brought the weapon up and fired two more shots at the legs of two other officers still on their feet and then shocked all three of them at once, bodies convulsing and writhing. The two in front of him fell before he released his grip on the man in his grasp, kicking him into an officer running towards him and toppling him over.

By now, the inmates were ecstatic, thrilled by the brutal violence occurring right before their eyes and the knowledge that one of their own was taking down several of the very people they despised who continued to hold them captive here even after so many long years. Beyond heard movement behind him and turned to see the captain of the Security Squad trying to get to his feet, a few other officers able to actually stand up straight near him. The cheering and encouragement Beyond was receiving from the inmates only served to excite him more and he patiently waited for yet another attack from the guards.

It soon came when one of them - a woman - tried to flank him with her nightstick. He was easily able to block the strike with his own baton and then used the momentum he had to disarm her and roughly jab her in the chest. She was protected from actual injury because of the vest she was wearing, but it still knocked her back against the wall and gave Beyond the opportunity to quickly rip her helmet off. She tried to defend herself by grabbing at him, but he was much faster and viciously struck her in the throat with the length of his nightstick.

The officer coughed and choked on her own blood as she slid to the floor, giving Beyond time to prepare himself against another officer who tried to attack him from behind. He quickly spun around and used both batons to hit the man on either side of his protective helmet at the same time, stunning him enough to make him drop his weapon and grab his head in obvious distress. As he did to the last officer, Beyond ripped his helmet off as well, and grabbing a fistful of the man's hair, slammed him face first against the concrete wall in front of him. He did this several more times before a sickening crunch against the blood splattered wall signaled to him that the man was dead.

Dropping his lifeless body to the floor, Beyond strolled over to a guard trying to get to his feet and roughly shoved him back down to the ground. Undoing the man's helmet, Beyond struck him right above the eye with the short end of his nightstick and then flipped it in his hand to bring the long end down on his nose. It was broken instantly, but much as before back in the exercise room, he didn't stop and continued bashing the man's face in until it was nothing but a bloody mess.

As he stood up, he saw two more corrections officers right themselves as they gradually rose to their feet. He sprinted towards them and struck one across the visor with his baton before hitting the other in the back of his neck. While one fell, he grabbed the other one after dropping his nightstick and roughly took hold of his head. Before the guard could react, Beyond twisted his head to the side as hard as he could and knew he had broken the man's neck when he heard a distinct cracking sound.

He dropped the corpse to the ground and pounced on top of the other man, taking hold of his visor and raising it as he withdrew the can of pepper spray. He squeezed the trigger and expelled its contents into the man's open eyes and mouth. Beyond cackled maniacally and got off of the guard as he thrashed and writhed beneath him, the substance doing a fine job of subduing him and rendering him quite useless.

Beyond retrieved his nightstick from where he'd dropped it and skipped gleefully back over to the captain, who was now on shaky legs and trying to swing at him with his own baton. Beyond ducked under and behind him to grab his arm and break it, hearing the man cry out as the limb was fractured. He wasted no time, putting him in a chokehold and throttling him with the long end of his nightstick.

He leaned in close to whisper in the man's ear, "Now, why don't you be a good boy and show me where the control room is?"

"O-Okay, okay!" the man gagged, gritting his teeth through the white hot pain shooting through his arm. "J-Just don't kill anyone else!"

Beyond chuckled. "Well, I can't promise that, but I suppose I can restrain myself for a little bit. But only if you and your friends choose to cooperate."

Pushing the captain forward, Beyond and he stepped over - and around - the three officers that had been shot with the Taser and the one who'd been pepper sprayed in the face. They and the captain were the only survivors from the Security Squad. But before Beyond and the captain reached the door, Beyond stopped in place and glanced over his shoulder back at his fellow SHU inmates. He waved the baton and flashed them all a smile, and the most disturbing part was that it wasn't fake in the least bit.

"Thank you, guys! You've been a wonderful audience! Maybe I'll send you all a postcard when I get out!"

He cackled wildly and returned his gaze to the man in front of him as he pushed him through the doors in front of both of them. The sounds of cheering and laughter from the prisoners began to slowly fade away behind them as they neared closer and closer to the control room.

Officer Berg Schultz stared slack jawed at the screen in the control room. He had been completely shocked when Beyond Birthday had killed those two guards back in the exercise room, but to singlehandedly take on the Security Squad and come out virtually unscathed was... well, it was just _impossible_. And on top of that, he now had the squad captain hostage and was making his way right for them! After all, it was virtually the only way he could get out of the SHU, so where else could he go?

Still, though...

"Schultz! Hey, Schultz!"

He was snapped out of his trance-like gaze and brought back to reality by the raised voice of Officer Luman Carmichael. He glanced up at him to see him frantically questioning him.

"Schultz, I said what the fuck are we gonna do?!" he cried, pointing at the screen. "That fucking psycho's on his way here right now!"

Officer Schultz tried to remain calm and instill some of that calmness back into the other man beside him. "Carmichael, calm down! Just... Just calm down, all right?"

"_Calm down_? How the _fuck _can you tell me to calm down?!" Carmichael shouted. "You saw what that crazy son of a bitch did to our people down there!"

"I _know _what he did!" Schultz shot back, starting to lose his composure. "Fuck, I saw the whole thing on camera, Carmichael! I saw every goddamn second of it!"

"Well, what the hell are we supposed to do? He's got a nightstick on Jenson, man!" He was, of course, referring to Raleigh Jenson, the captain of Pelican Bay's Security Squad currently in Beyond's captivity.

Schultz sighed heavily, glancing down at the security monitor. "If he wants us to let him in - which I _know_ he will - then we'll have no choice but to do just that."

Carmichael froze, eyes widening and jaw dropping. "What?"

"I said we're going to have to let him in, Carmichael," Schultz looked up from the monitor and over at his work partner.

"W-Why the hell would we do something like _that_?!" Carmichael exclaimed incredulously. "You _want _him to kill us?!"

"Do you want him to kill _Jenson_?" Schultz shouted. "He's got a wife and two kids, man! We're both single; we don't have families!"

"So what, we're... expendable now? Is that it? Is that what you're saying, Schultz? Because it sure as hell sounds like that's what you're implying. Berg, you know as well as I do that as soon as you open the door for that goddamn psycho, he's gonna paint the walls red with our fuckin' blood! Do you _want _that to happen, man? Huh? Do you _have _a death wish, pal, because that's basically gonna be what you-"

Schultz rose to his full height and grabbed Officer Carmichael by the collar, roughly shoving him up against the window of the control room. "Listen to me, Carmichael, and listen well," he spoke quietly but dangerously. "We're gonna open that door for Birthday, we're gonna get him to give up Jenson, and we're gonna let him walk out of the SHU. By the time he gets outside, the police will probably be here anyway. He won't stand a chance against them, and that's _if _he gets past the yard gunners on his way out. He's _finished_."

After a few more tense moments between both men, Carmichael eventually nodded and was slowly released by his fellow officer. "O-Okay, man. But at least give me the gun."

Schultz shook his head, returning to the monitor. "No, Carmichael. I don't want anyone _near _the Mini when he gets here," he responded, referring to the Mini-14 rifle propped up against the wall.

"But, Schultz-!" Carmichael began.

"I said _no_, Carmichael!"

Before Officer Carmichael could come up with another argumentative point, Schultz noticed movement down below in the community room. He recognized the figure in prison riot gear as Security Squad Captain Jenson and was just barely able to make out the white-clad figure of the serial killer behind him.

"Shit, it's him," he swore under his breath. He glanced over at Carmichael as he made his way towards the door. "Just stay here and don't fucking do anything stupid."

Not waiting for a response from the other corrections officer, Schultz opened the door and stepped outside onto the upper deck. "Beyond Birthday?" he called out.

He saw a pale face with some blood splattered on it stick out from behind Captain Jenson and smile broadly at him, waving the nightstick in the air. "Ah, so you _do _know who I am! Am I really that popular or are you just trying to flatter me?"

"What do you want?" Schultz asked, deciding to ignore Beyond's comments and instead play dumb for the moment.

Beyond chuckled, seeing through the man's ruse almost immediately. "Oh, come now; you know _exactly _what I want. I want you to let me up into that little control room of yours and direct me just how to get out of here."

"I figured as much," Schultz replied. "If I do that, however, do I have your personal guarantee that you will _not_ harm Captain Jenson, myself, or anyone else?"

Beyond seemed to think about it for a moment, considering what the officer was saying. After a bit, he shrugged. "All right, Officer...?" he trailed off, waiting for the man's name.

"Schultz," the owner of the name replied.

"Schultz," Beyond repeated the surname. "All right then, Officer Schultz, you have a deal. But I warn you now," and here he leveled a deadly glare at the officer on the upper deck, "if I even _suspect_ that you or whoever else up there with you is trying to stop me or go behind my back in any way, I will not hesitate to end the life of your precious little captain here. Do you understand?" He jerked the nightstick up against Captain Jenson's throat for emphasis, making him gag as his breathing was momentarily constricted.

"Y-Yes, I understand!" Schultz exclaimed, starting to walk backwards. "Okay, I'm going to let you up here and into the control room. J-Just, please... don't hurt him."

Beyond chuckled. "You have my word... for now. I'll be waiting. However, I should note that I do tend to become rather... unpredictable when I get bored, and I have had seven years' worth of boredom here in a small concrete cell. So to put things simply, if I were you, I would try not to bore me too much."

Officer Schultz glanced at him for a moment longer before heading back into the control room. He didn't very much enjoy the prospect of putting a friend and fellow coworker's life in the hands of a deranged serial killer, but what choice did he have? He could either - rather grudgingly - trust the man to not harm one of the many people who was responsible for keeping him locked up here in the first place or he could try to rescue him, but-

No. That second one wasn't even an option. Beyond Birthday was a lot of things, but even Officer Schultz recognized that stupid was not one of them. He would be able to see a rescue attempt from a mile away and Schultz didn't doubt for even a second that he wouldn't hesitate to exact retribution on - quite literally - the closest person to him; retribution that he was sure would take a _lot _of work to clean up off the floor and walls when all was over and done with.

Keeping this in the very front of his mind as he walked back into the room, he decided to let his partner know exactly what was going to happen. After all, even if Luman had heard the little exchange between the two of them from moments ago, Schultz wanted to make it _very _clear to the other man that there would still be no deviation from the original plan he'd lain out to him when they had noticed Beyond heading for them earlier; under _no _circumstances would any action be taken on their part whatsoever to stop Birthday or rescue Captain Jenson from the certain danger he was currently in.

"All right, Carmichael, he wants-" he began before realizing that the other man was nowhere to be seen. "Carmichael?"

To his horror, he looked to the side and saw that the Mini-14 was gone from where it should have been. He had left it sitting right there up against the wall when he went outside, so where the hell could it have possibly gone in that short amount of time?! And where the hell was-?!

Oh, _fuck_.

It didn't take him very long to put two and two together, and when he realized what must have happened, he blanched and his eyes widened. "Oh, shit," he breathed out.

This was _not _good. He didn't have anything to remotely defend himself with and Carmichael was off somewhere playing "hero." There was a chance he was still somewhere here in the control room, but-

"Officer Schultz?" an almost childlike voice jolted the man back to reality, causing him to glance out of the control room window in the direction of the source of said voice. "Are you still there? I'm afraid that I am beginning to grow bored, and I'm not too sure how Captain Jenson will fare under this baton here..."

Understanding just what Beyond was implying, Schultz promptly held his hands up in a defensive, "All-right-just-give-me-a-minute-here" gesture, holding his index finger up for emphasis. Quickly locating the button to unlock the door to the control room, there was a loud electronic click as the door's lock was undone, drawing Beyond's attention to it almost immediately. Glancing up at the control room, he waved his baton at Officer Schultz with an apparently gracious smile and led Captain Jenson toward the door to make his way to the room.

As soon as Birthday was out of eyeshot, Schultz immediately whipped around and frantically began searching for his partner, hoping to God that he was able to find him and get his gun back before the serial killer and his hostage arrived in less than thirty seconds. He harshly whispered the other officer's name, ducking under and around several desks and other furniture in the room in an attempt to find him. He wasn't just worried about where he had gone off to, but also the fact that compared to himself, Carmichael was inexperienced with the gun he had taken off with. If he panicked and decided to discharge that weapon here with three other people in its vicinity...

Officer Schultz shook his head at this thought, trying to cast it as far away from his rationale as he possibly could._ No, don't even think of that, _he thought contradictively.

He heard movement outside and was just barely able to hurry to the door to make it appear as if he hadn't just been desperately searching for his partner in an attempt to avoid a rather ugly potential situation. Beyond and Captain Jenson appeared just a moment later, slowly stepping over the threshold to enter the control room. Officer Schultz stepped aside as Beyond pushed Jenson forward, looking around with childlike interest.

He whistled as his large black eyes took in every little part of the room. "Wow, what a place!" He then glanced out the window. "And just look at that view!"

Schultz's own eyes widened for a moment at the inmate's rather bizarre behavior before forcing them to return to a neutral position, not wanting to give Birthday the impression that he was nervous or hiding anything from him. He suddenly remembered that he actually _was _hiding something from him and, with slight but masked panic, quickly scanned the room with his eyes to see if he could locate Carmichael.

Beyond abruptly looked over his shoulder at the man standing behind him, who he noticed was visually scanning the room very fervently and intently... almost as if he were looking for something hidden away. "Looking for something, Officer Schultz?" he asked in the most creatively innocent tone he could possibly come up with, though he damn well knew what the other man was doing.

Schultz stiffened and quickly glanced back over at Beyond. Shaking his head somewhat nervously, he responded, "N-No, I was just... uh... looking around."

He inwardly winced and gave himself a mental kick in the ass for that statement. _Great going, Berg. Now he's _definitely _gonna think something's up!_

"It wasn't your friend, was it?"

Schultz froze. _Oh, fuck. Did he see Carmichael in the window when he first got into the community room? Oh shit, this is bad..._

"N-No," he lied, quickly coming up with an excuse. "Just, uh... my... my hat. Wh-What friend?"

Beyond laughed. "You know who; the other guy who was standing here next to you when I first saw you down in the community room. Now where did he run off to, hm? He's missing our little get-together!"

"I... I don't know." It was a half-lie; Schultz honestly didn't know where Carmichael was, but he did have a fairly good idea of where he _could _be and definitely knew that he'd at least taken the rifle with him. Once again, though, _exactly_ where was the million dollar question.

Unfortunately, Beyond didn't take the bait. "Really?" his lips curved up into a very creepy looking smile, just daring the other man to lie to him again. "No idea at all?"

"N-No, I swear!" Schultz shook his head. "He was here one minute and then gone the next!"

Beyond took a step toward the other man, slightly pushing Captain Jenson forward as he did so. He ignored the man's wincing as his broken arm was slightly jostled from the movement. Beyond gave Officer Schultz a very skeptical, disbelieving look from between narrowed dark eyes.

Schultz swallowed rather loudly.

"You wouldn't happen to be _lying _to me, now would you?" the serial killer asked in an almost innocent tone if not for the purposeful emphasis on the sixth word in that interrogative sentence.

Schultz noticed Beyond's grip adjust on the nightstick in his hands and suddenly became very nervous about his own personal safety, because once he lost his hostage, he would either take him as one for a replacement or, more than likely, just kill him right here in the control room.

_Jesus Christ, _he thought. _Why me? Why here? Why today?_

* * *

Officer Carmichael, on the other hand, was huddled right up against a large piece of electronic equipment directly behind Officer Schultz. He attempted to contain his panic and gripped the stock of the Mini-14 rifle in his trembling hands until they went white, the very same rifle his fellow partner had explicitly told him _not _to touch once Beyond arrived. In a panic, as soon as his partner had left the room, he'd quickly grabbed it and hid himself so as not to be seen by the serial killer.

After all, what if Beyond had decided that he didn't wish to negotiate and had taken the gun propped up against the wall? What if he decided to use it on Schultz, Jenson, or even _him_? What if he decided to take it with him as part of his escape and fire it upon others?

In his mind, there were far too many "what if's" for his liking and he had figured that by removing the source of those "what if's," the negative outcomes of them could be averted as well. But Beyond had seen him and was now questioning Schultz about his whereabouts. The dark haired killer had a hostage and was armed; Schultz was _not_.

_Shit! _Officer Carmichael thought, struggling to maintain his grip on the rifle stock and keep his shaking hands under control. _Shit, shit, shit!_

He wanted to just burst up and out from his hiding place and shoot that crazy bastard right between the eyes, but he knew it wouldn't work; the psycho was just too damn smart. Odds were he'd be able to calculate the incoming bullet's speed and trajectory and just move Jenson's head into its path or some damn thing. Regardless, he was virtually powerless to stop Beyond Birthday from doing whatever his sick, twisted little heart desired.

But... perhaps he could at least _try_. He could, at the very least, _attempt _to prevent the mentally deranged man in this room from carrying out whatever the hell kind of fucked up plans he had in that equally fucked up head of his. He'd heard of what the son of a bitch had done to those three poor bastards in L.A. and had no qualms whatsoever toward stopping him from breaking out of here.

He took a deep - but quiet - breath and tried to come up with some sort of plan that would involve killing Birthday with just one shot while still keeping his people alive. He may not have been as intelligent or athletic as Beyond Birthday, but _he_ had a gun in his hands and the other man didn't. Even with just this one advantage, he suddenly felt much more confident about what he was going to do.

_All right, you crazy motherfucker, _he thought as he got into a crouch and prepared to quickly stand up and shoot, _you're going down hard._

* * *

Schultz felt his back touch the piece of electronic equipment behind him, glancing over his shoulder and down to see that he was now about halfway across the room. Jesus, had Birthday backed him up _that _far? He was just about to try another persuasion tactic with the psychopath in front of him when he heard something move behind him and quickly whipped his head around to see none other than the man he worked with upright and pointing the barrel of the Mini-14 straight ahead.

"C-Carmichael?!" he exclaimed both incredulously and slightly curiously. "What... What the fuck are you doing?"

"I'm putting an end to this," the armed man said resolutely. "Beyond Birthday, release Security Squad Captain Jenson within the next five seconds or I will personally separate the back of your head from the rest of your fucking body!"

The corner of Beyond's lip curled up at this, almost as if he knew the punch line to a joke that the other man didn't. "Are you _sure _you want to do that, Officer Carmichael? Are you _really _sure? Are you aware that there is only a mere twenty-nine percent chance of you actually killing me with one shot?"

"Shut your goddamned mouth, Birthday!" Carmichael hissed. "You don't get to talk!"

"Oh, really?" The smile only grew. "And why not, may I ask?"

"C-Carmichael!" Schultz spun around, looking his partner desperately in the eyes. "Don't let him get into your head! J-Just drop the gun, okay?"

"Sorry, Schultz, but I'm afraid I can't do that," Officer Carmichael slowly shook his head, keeping his aim steady on Beyond's head. "I can't just sit back and let this sicko break out. I'm gonna make sure he never kills anyone _ever again_."

And suddenly, Schultz understood what was about to happen: even if Beyond released Jenson unharmed to them, Carmichael was still going to kill him. He wasn't interested in negotiating or bargaining; he was going to shoot Beyond Birthday to death right here in the control room, regardless of anything and everything that happened before he did so. Schultz stepped in between them, holding his arms out and quickly glancing between both parties.

"W-Wait! Listen to me; we can work this out! C-Carmichael, ju-just drop the gun, all right? Just drop it and Beyond will release Jenson!"

Beyond chuckled. "I don't believe that was part of the deal, Officer Schultz, but... perhaps I can be a little flexible. That is, if Officer Carmichael drops that big rifle of his and promises not to interfere."

"Fuck you, psycho!" Carmichael spat. "You're not goin' anywhere!"

Schultz spun on his partner. "Carmichael, what the _fuck _are you doing?!" he exclaimed incredulously. "Drop the fucking gun right _now_!"

Carmichael eyed his work partner, then Beyond, then back to Schultz again. "I'm sorry, Schultz," he said barely above a whisper, finally focusing his attention on Beyond. He raised his weapon, aiming down the open sights and focusing on his head. "But I can't let him get away."

Quickly glancing over his shoulder at the inmate and his hostage and then back at his partner, Schultz rapidly sputtered out, "W-Wait, Carmichael! Don't do this! We can negotiate something! We can-"

Beyond chose that particular moment to quickly move to the side, prompting Carmichael to follow him with the length of his rifle, still carefully aiming at his head. It was also in this same particular moment that Officer Carmichael had decided that he'd had enough of the killer's antics.

"I've got you now, you son of a bitch," he whispered under his breath before squeezing the trigger tight to discharge his weapon.

However, he was surprised to see a flash of green collapse to the floor instead, red intermixing with the dark color of the floor. He was too shocked by what he saw lying before him to notice Beyond throw Captain Jenson to the side and slowly proceed towards him. Officer Carmichael began hyperventilating and suddenly found it hard to breathe.

"S-Schultz?" he whispered.

When he didn't receive any kind of verbal acknowledgement from the other man, Carmichael dropped the Mini-14 and quickly knelt down beside his work partner and the man he'd known for three years here at Pelican Bay. He blanched and froze when he saw the red blood spurting out of the side of Officer Schultz's neck, the man gasping for air and trying to cover up the wound to control the bleeding. All things considered, he really should have been more concerned with the psychotic killer less than ten feet away from him, but then again, it wasn't every day that you accidentally shot one of your best friends in the neck.

"O-Oh my God..."

Carmichael bent down closer to his partner, covering the other man's hand up with his own and applying as much pressure as he could against the wound. Warm blood coated both of their hands, sticking to their skin and filling the air with a distinctive metallic smell. In the instant that he'd fired at Beyond, he must have somehow accidentally hit Schultz in his carotid artery instead of the killer he was aiming for. He felt tears well up in his eyes, the morbid realization that he'd shot his own friend hitting him like a speeding car.

"Schultz..." he whimpered, putting an arm under his neck to cradle the dying man. "I... oh God, I'm so sorry..."

His own recklessness and stupidity had caused him to shoot his own friend, the life literally bleeding out of the other man right now a damning piece of evidence to attest to that fact. His friend looked up at him with eyes full of confusion and regret as he gurgled and gasped for breath, and Carmichael wished with his entire being that he could have gone back just three minutes into the past so he never would have taken the gun, never would have drawn on Beyond... never would have shot his own friend.

But he couldn't, and now he had to deal with the consequences. One of those very consequences lay dying in his arms, blood endlessly spurting out of the grazing wound in his neck and spewing onto the floor beneath him. His skin began to lose its color and his eyes started to close shut, body falling limp in the other man's arms as the life slowly left him. He was dead within a few more moments, body stilling completely and eyes fully closed for the very last time as he expired.

"S-Schultz... oh, Jesus..." Officer Carmichael sobbed as he buried his head in the other man's chest, unable to control his grief over what he'd just done.

He didn't notice when Beyond picked up the rifle he'd dropped on the floor, nor when the other man stood over him with a huge grin on his permanently scarred face. He felt a split-second of pain in his temple when he was struck with the butt of the rifle before falling back against the piece of electronic equipment he had been hiding behind perhaps a minute ago. Blood trickled out from the small gash now present on the side of his head as his body slumped over, unconscious in a matter of moments.

Beyond adjusted the weapon in his hands and pointed the barrel straight down at the corrections officer's head, aiming down the iron sights and preparing to fire. But as he began to squeeze the trigger, a sudden thought struck him right upside the head in a similar way that he'd literally done that very thing to the same man he was about to kill: Wouldn't it just be more fun to let him live with the fact that he killed the wrong person? His eyes widened and he removed his finger from the trigger, instead placing it against the stock right above the trigger guard.

He had to admit that this was a very entertaining idea. At first, he had originally just planned to make a complete mess out of whoever happened to be up here in the control room when they let him up with his hostage, regardless if they let him go without a struggle or not. But now, the more he thought about it, the more excited he became. He smiled just at the thought of this man - Officer _Carmichael_, wasn't it? - waking up to the sight of his dead partner right in front of him and having to explain to his superiors exactly what had transpired up here that had caused his death; he certainly wouldn't be able to lie about it, and even if he tried, the footage from the countless security cameras here would serve to contradict his every lie in court or wherever he would be questioned.

In that very same questioning, he would have no choice butto explain to someone - or maybe even a group of people - about how he had accidentally shot his partner while the psychotic serial killer he was trying to stop escaped from one of the most heavily guarded prisons in America entirely on his watch. While explaining this incident to them, he would be forced to relive the traumatic experience he'd gone through and had ended up only worsening due to a simple miscalculation on his part. He would have to live the rest of his life in shame and guilt over what he'd done. Perhaps he might even have some flashbacks or terrifying nightmares later on, or even - and this was just wishful thinking on his part - become diagnosed with some sort of anxiety disorder after this event, such as post-traumatic stress disorder.

His smile grew to Cheshire-esque qualities as he slowly lowered the rifle, standing up straight and looking down upon the unconscious man before him. Putting the rifle over his shoulder, he allowed it to dangle slightly behind his back from the sling as he knelt down beside the unconscious corrections officer and took hold of both of his hands. Giggling at the thought of just what he was doing, he moved the limp hands until the palms were in Officer Schultz's blood, still red, wet and warm. He compared it to a kindergartener making a finger painting in class and giggled even harder at that allusion as he made sure Officer Carmichael's palms and fingers were completely coated in the life supporting substance.

When they were just about soaked with blood, he pushed the hands back until they were at about the same level of Carmichael's face and began smearing the liquid all over it, making especially sure to cover his lips and eyelids. He even put some of it in his hair and around his neck just for fun. He chuckled as he released the other man's hands and admired his handiwork up close, wishing that he could video tape the man's reactions when he woke up to find himself covered in his friend's own blood but knowing that wouldn't be possible due to time constraints.

Speaking of which...

Rising up to his full height, he quickly turned on his heel and walked back toward Captain Jenson, who was drifting in and out of consciousness due to the blinding pain his fractured arm was assaulting him with. Nudging him with his foot, Beyond nodded his head upward in a "get up" gesture. The older man understood just what Beyond wanted and slowly got to his feet, wincing as he moved his broken arm a bit too much and caused another blinding wave of pain to cascade through the whole limb.

Grabbing hold of the man's shoulders, Beyond directed him back to the door they'd both walked through to enter the control room. The other man began to protest and voice his thoughts out loud as to just what Beyond wanted with him now, but the mentally deranged man behind him paid him no mind. As they stepped out onto the landing to the stairway, Jenson was quite surprised when he felt Beyond moving him toward the railing rather than back down the stairs like he believed he would.

"H-Hey, wh-what are you doing?!" he exclaimed incredulously as he was moved closer and closer to the metal railing. "Why are you pushing me towards the railing?! What the hell do you-?!"

"Oh, hush now," Beyond said in a soothing voice while hypocritically grabbing the captain's wounded arm and twisting roughly. "Your pain will all be over very soon." He ignored the ear-piercing scream of agony and continued pushing the older man forward, a small smile forming on his pale lips.

Through the pain, Jenson gritted his teeth and tried to turn his head over his shoulder to directly address Beyond. "Hey, just what in the hell are you _doing_?! Do you-?!"

And then, Beyond gave him a rather hard shove to send the Security Squad captain head first over the railing. Gravity did its work for him as the man was pulled down toward the concrete floor about ten feet below him, screaming as he fell. His outstretched arms did little to protect the rest of his body from harm, as every bone in them was completely shattered upon impact right before he landed directly on his head. A very loud snapping sound resonated off of the community room's walls as the man's neck was broken in an instant, the rest of his lifeless body following and sprawling out limply on the floor with a heavy thud.

Beyond threw his head up toward the ceiling and cackled as he watched the whole thing from his position right behind the railing, holding his sides as his body shook with laughter. He wiped a tear from his eye as the moment of sadistic mirth faded away before turning back to reenter the control room. _Have a nice trip, see you next fall! _he thought with a huge grin on his face, the corniness yet very applicable hilarity of the joke to the situation quite amusing to him.

Quickly striding over to the control panel, he took a few moments to analyze the various switches, buttons, and other mechanical devices that made it up before figuring out which ones did what. It would probably would have been much less of a hassle for either one of the officers to direct him how to get out of here as he'd originally planned, but no matter; he was adaptable. Flipping a few switches and pressing some buttons to unlock various doors and gates that otherwise would have blocked his way beforehand, he spun around on his heel and left the room, wanting to skip through the prison while whistling a cheery tune but quite aware that as of this very moment, that would be quite impossible. Still, he simply shrugged it off and adjusted the Mini-14 rifle on his shoulder, the grin still on his face as he left the control room behind.

* * *

It took Beyond perhaps four to five minutes to reach the prison's exterior, though he probably could have done it in just three flat had it not been for the countless guards and patrols he'd had to dodge and hide from. Though he _did_ have a firearm now, he remained solely concentrated on the singular goal of getting out of the prison. It had been rather tempting to strangle, fatally bludgeon or even shoot some passing and unsuspecting guards who hadn't noticed him in the many corridors and hallways, but he would have become so absorbed in the addictive sadistic pleasure that came with those actions that he wouldn't have even noticed the police units surrounding the prison and SWAT team that likely would have stormed it until it was too late.

He was somewhat proud of himself for being able to hold back, but his thirst for violence was beginning to cloud his judgment as it slowly overtook his common sense and rationale (well, the little bit he had left, anyway). He tried to ignore it as he ran past the prison fence in the rain, but the more he did, the more he realized how badly he just needed to _kill _someone. Or some_thing_, even. Fuck, he'd even settle for stomping on a pigeon at this point!

Quickly exiting through the now-open gate, he took off as fast as he could in the direction of the parking lot to look for a car to steal, drenched from head to toe by the downpour in a matter of seconds. Stealing things was fun for him too, even if the thrill of it didn't quite match up to that of when he committed murder in the first degree.

Suddenly, the crack of a rifle made him immediately freeze in place and whip his head around to follow the sound, the raging thunderstorm making that especially difficult. But Beyond was able to locate the source of his troubles almost immediately; a yard gunner in a tower had spotted him leaving the prison and was now shooting at him. It was only now that he noticed that there was a floodlight focused entirely on him, but he just chuckled to himself as he quickly unstrapped the rifle over his shoulder and took careful aim at his aggressor. Perhaps he'd get his wish after all.

Squeezing off just one shot, Beyond felt the kickback of the rifle as the chambered round flew through the night air and struck the guard directly in the heart, lifeless body falling off the catwalk and dropping to the ground far below. Laughing wildly, Beyond shot out the floodlight just for fun, his laughter only growing in volume as the bulb exploded and sent hundreds of shards of glass and countless sparks flying out from the now-destroyed object in all directions as a result.

Taking another moment to observe the damage he'd done, he turned around and sprinted to the parking lot, knowing it would only be a matter of minutes before law enforcement arrived. Going up and down the rows of cars, he searched for something both fast and durable, and when he came to one in specific, he smiled to himself in triumph. _That's perfect_, he thought excitedly.

The car in particular was a red 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T coupe. He was hardly one for cars, but even _he_ could appreciate something classic such as this. Walking up to the driver side door, he used the butt of the rifle to smash out the window and reached inside to unlock the door. Ignoring the blaring of the car alarm, he threw the door open and tossed the rifle onto the front passenger seat as if it were a mere toy. But then again, to Beyond, it practically _was_.

Kneeling down, he quickly set to disabling the alarm before hotwiring the actual car itself for driving. This was the more annoying part, but seeing as he didn't have the keys to drive it himself, this was really his only other choice. After tweaking some wires and whatnot, he knew he'd succeeded when the engine started up and smiled to himself triumphantly.

Standing up, he quickly hopped into the driver's seat, shut the door, and tested out the acceleration pedal with a scarred, pale bare foot. He giggled as the speedometer needle jumped into the red and adjusted himself in the seat, wet body and clothes squishing against the leather upholstery as he gripped the steering wheel tightly in both hands. Gazing at his own reflection in the rearview mirror, he turned on the windshield wipers and took the Challenger out of park before speeding out of the lot, leaving Pelican Bay State Prison and its wailing alarm system far behind while laughing crazily the entire time.

He was free from prison, he was driving a nearly forty-year-old classic car that was currently doing about eighty miles per hour on a full tank of gas, he had a loaded weapon right next to him should he need it, he had a perfect plan for what he was going to do next, and with his vast knowledge and superior intellect, the chances of anyone actually catching him were practically slim to none. What more could a man ask for?

_God bless America! _he thought as he rounded a bend and sped down the wrong side of the road with a cackle.

* * *

**This first chapter was a bitch to write because of the fact that it's not too easy to find very minute details on Pelican Bay. And I suppose that's understandable as it **_**is**_**, after all, one of the most notorious supermaximum security prisons in North America. Still, though... ugh. Most of what I know about it comes from Wikipedia articles and an episode of the MSNBC series **_**Lockup**_** - titled "Return to Pelican Bay" - that I watched on YouTube. I chose it to be the prison Beyond is kept in because even though there are three other supermax prisons in the state of California - United States Penitentiary in Atwater, California Correctional Institution in Tehachapi, and High Desert State Prison in Susanville - Pelican Bay is basically where the most serious offenders in the state go, and since the novel never specified exactly **_**which **_**prison in California he was sent to, I just figured, "Hey, why not PBSP?"**

* * *

**Here are several facts about the prison and other things that happened in this chapter that I either mentioned or briefly alluded to (in the order that they appear):**

**1.) The room that Beyond is walking around in at the beginning of the chapter is, like I said, the SHU's exercise room. Prisoners in the Security Housing Unit are confined to their eight-foot wide, ten-foot long concrete cells for all but ninety minutes a day. These mere - court mandated - ninety minutes are allowed to be spent "exercising" in a room the length of three of these cells with four twenty-foot concrete walls, a small drain in the floor, a glass-plated ceiling that allows them to look up at the sky (the only source of natural light in the SHU), and a security camera watching their every move; also as I said. Most prisoners simply choose to just walk around in the exercise room, as there isn't much space to do a whole lot else and is why many in the SHU refer to it as the "dog run."**

**2.) The Security Squad team that attempts to stop Beyond when he first breaks out of his cell is an actual organization within the prison. It's made up of just nine prison guards; eight officers and one squad captain. They're trained to investigate and respond to any and all crimes committed by the prisoners within PBSP, such as inmate-on-inmate assaults, assisting other prison guards when necessary, or controlling prison riots. They also conduct searches for contraband within inmates' cells, perform random patdowns in the prison yard for weapons, and thoroughly screen the mail that comes to and goes out from the prison in order to ensure no hidden messages and/or suspicious paraphernalia are being sent back and forth; PBSP typically gets about five thousand pieces of mail **_**daily**_**, not counting newspapers and magazines. Because of the massive amount of work they do on a daily basis within the prison, this small nine-person team is actually considered to be one of the most active police organizations in the **_**world**_**.**

**3.) The Taser that one of the Security Squad guys pulls on Beyond is of the X3 model from Taser International, the company who makes them. Instead of just firing one shot and then having to reload like the previous X26 model, the X3 can fire up to three shots before running out of ammunition. Also, after a shot - or "shots," plural - has/have been fired, the user can utilize a function on the weapon to deliver an electrical shock to whoever - or **_**what**_**ever - happens to be on the business end of those electrodes, even if they were already electrocuted by the initial charge. Interestingly enough, the X3 was released on July 27, 2009, almost a month before this chapter takes place, so I suppose that it would be plausible for at least one PBSP corrections officer to be carrying an X3 Taser during that time gap.**

**4.) Pelican Bay has several control rooms throughout its entire infrastructure, both in the general population section and the SHU. At least one guard constantly mans each of these rooms and controls which doors are opened around their sector and when; one wrong push of a button and they could very well accidentally unleash a dangerous inmate upon an unsuspecting co-worker. I believe each control room overlooks a "community room" below, which is basically where prisoners eat and spend their time out of their cells when they aren't outside (I don't think this applies to the guys in the SHU, as they're served their meals in paper bags and on trays through a slot in their cell door and have to use the "dog run" room for exercise, but you get the point). Unlike the regular corrections officers who patrol the ground levels, officers up in the control rooms are equipped with much heavier weaponry to deal with situations that could very well arise within their sectors. They have a six-round, non-lethal rubber bullet gun to suppress minor incidents; if that doesn't work, they use a CN gas canister launcher for more "persuasiveness"; and if the perpetrators still refuse to stand down or if the situation deteriorates into one where the lives of PBSP personnel are jeopardized, control room officers are authorized to use Mini-14 rifles to get the situation back under their control by any means necessary. I'm not too sure about the general population section of the prison, but SHU control room guards do **_**not**_** fire warning shots with their rifles at the perpetrating inmates during life-threatening situations; they shoot to kill.**

* * *

**Oh, and one more thing; please forgive me if the Dodge Challenger that Beyond steals sounds like a shitty idea for a cool car. Besides some minimal Internet research, I know next to nothing about classic and/or collectible cars. I thought about using a Chevrolet Camaro or something like that, but then I remembered that Matt uses that in the manga and wanted to try something new. The Challenger just sorta appealed to me and I thought it would make for a nice ride... oh, well.**


	2. Burning Rubber

**If that first chapter didn't give you a good idea of just how messed up Beyond really is in the head - at least in this story - then you're sure as **_**hell **_**going to find out quite soon. I recently read **_**American Psycho **_**by Bret Easton Ellis - a **_**very **_**good book in my opinion, but **_**extremely **_**graphic and quite disturbing; if you thought the Mary Harron movie from 2000 with Christian Bale was messed up, seriously, you have **_**no fucking **_**idea what you're in for when you read the original book version - and I have a feeling that it's going to heavily influence this story and how it goes, especially when it comes to Beyond's thoughts and behavior. Some of the stuff he does might disturb, scare, or possibly even disgust you, so I'm just warning you all now.**

**I don't quite want him to go in the "Patrick Bateman" direction - the serial killer and main protagonist from **_**American Psycho **_**- and what that all involves, but still, be prepared for some fairly fucked up shit ahead. Sorry, I just couldn't find a way to put that honest statement lightly or more, shall we say, **_**euphemistically**_**. Ha ha ha. But anyway, if you think you can handle some rather dark stuff then by all means, please continue reading! My ego thanks you in advance.**

**Warning: (Even) More violence! ...Are you really surprised, though?**

* * *

**Chapter 2 - Burning Rubber**

_Paris, 16__th __arrondissement of Paris (Arrondissement de Paris) - France_

_Shangri-La Hotel Paris - Seventh floor, La Suite Shangri-La_

_August 23, 2009_

_0740 hours_

Nine hours ahead, a man was crouched upon the sofa in one of the several rooms he had rented out on the seventh floor of the Shangri-La Hotel Paris, busily typing away at a Microsoft Word document on the Apple MacBook Air balanced precariously on his knees by the early light of the morning. It was technically all one suite, as he had chosen to connect it with the rest of the seventh floor for just him and his assistant. Of course, that also made it _much _more expensive per night than it already was to stay here, but with the eight-figure amount he had to his name in total, the expense was mere pocket change to him.

The two of them had already been here for a week working on a case to solve the murder of a forty-six-year-old French woman who was found stabbed to death with a kitchen knife approximately eleven times in her apartment complex. Of course, it had only taken this man and his assistant a mere two days to solve this case, and that was only due to the fact that local law enforcement hadn't exactly "cooperated" as much as it should have before certain measures had to be taken to "fix" that little issue. He could have done it in less than _one_ if he had worked by himself, but he'd decided to play nice by giving them the opportunity to work alongside him in the investigation.

It would be a while before he tried it again, as they had almost let the suspect slip between their fingers and flee the country. Only because of a hunch on the man's part as to where the suspect would be going next and the sharp eyes of a lone policeman who had spotted him before he got away was he now in prison awaiting trial. As it turned out, the killer was the victim's divorced ex-husband of three years who had murdered her in a fit of rage that had been brought on by a combination of excessive drinking and illegal drug use. Not a very challenging case in his opinion, but it was still a case, nonetheless.

...Still though, what _should_ have been a rather simple, clear-cut case had turned into one hell of a fiasco by the end just because a few higher-ups thought it would be a good idea to go behind his back and do some rather questionable, unethical things without first consulting him. Typically, he only involved himself in cases where the body count totaled at least ten victims or where more than a million dollars was concerned, but he hadn't had a high profile case containing either of those personal prerequisites for several months now and had been forced to just work with what little was out there. Well, really, there was a _lot _out there, but all of it put together was just hundreds of small, easy cases that didn't challenge even ten percent of his mind power _combined_.

In other words, the big, tough cases he enjoyed and even flourished upon were largely in the minority nowadays. After all, he hadn't earned the prestigious title of "world's greatest detective" by undertaking only small, rather simple matters that could be easily solved by just any ordinary police force that didn't have nearly the amount of resources and assets that he did. What an utter _bore _this all was.

Sighing to himself, he cracked his neck rather loudly and reached forward to retrieve a _Puits d'amour _from the silver platter sitting on the glass table in front of him. He plucked it delicately from where it lay upon the gleaming metal with a thumb and index finger, pinching it between the pair of long, thin, pale digits before plopping the whole thing into his mouth and chewing it.

His mouth was assaulted by the overwhelming sweetness of caramel and redcurrant jelly before swallowing, licking his lips when he was done. He noticed that there was still caramel on his thumb and forefinger and proceeded to lick them clean of the sweet substance as well, absentmindedly wiping his hand off on his jeans before getting back to typing. Reports were never a very exciting part of his job, but after all, the French government did deserve to know about his involvement in the case and everything that had transpired along the way with it.

He was just starting a new paragraph when his cell phone rang in his pocket. Setting the laptop aside, he compulsively saved the document he was working on for the forty-seventh time in the last five minutes before closing the lid. Rising off of the plushy sofa he had previously been crouching on, he simultaneously retrieved the Apple iPhone 3GS - the 32 GB version, specifically - from his right front pocket while taking a handful of punitions from the platter before walking towards one of the large, panoramic bay windows of his suite. Popping one of the cookies into his mouth, he held up the smartphone to his eye level and checked the caller ID.

He almost choked on the cookie that was halfway down his throat when his highly analytic brain processed the digital information displayed for him on the capacitive touchscreen of his iPhone. He stood completely still for several seconds, unable to feel the soft cookies in his left hand or the cell phone in his right. His abnormally large eyes widened even further upon the sight and he blinked just to make sure it wasn't some sort of optical illusion, shaking the phone slightly to confirm that there wasn't something wrong with the screen's visual display.

He blinked once more and swallowed the rest of the cookie harshly, his typically voracious appetite now all but gone. He knew exactly who was calling, where they were, and what they were about to tell him. Once he slid the digital bar on the phone's screen to the right side to accept the incoming call from nearly 5,400 miles away, he would hear the very information that he hoped he never would have to in his lifetime.

Seven years ago, he had explicitly told the man on the other end of the phone to immediately call him if _it _ever happened and ordered that he should only call him _if _it ever happened... well, "when" was probably the more appropriate word there. He had never spoken to the man since, not even once over a phone call for a few brief moments or through a simple text message. There had been strict communicative silence between them until today, and the man standing in front of the bay window with a magnificent view of the famed Eiffel Tower knew exactly what it meant, that it could _only_ mean one single thing.

Today, his very worst fear had come to life.

Gulping, he slid his thumb across the smooth screen to accept the call and slowly pulled the phone back toward his face to listen to the man's words on the other end of the line. Placing the receiver next to his ear hidden behind a mass of dark hair, he focused his hearing on absolutely nothing other than any kind of sound coming from the speaker of his phone.

For a few brief moments, nothing was said or heard by either party on the line; in an almost ironic way, the silence was utterly deafening. But then the man - the one who _wasn't_ in Paris - spoke. "I've confirmed it," was all he said, and yet those three words were enough to make the man on the other end cringe, feeling as if his pale skin were beginning to actually crawl.

Swallowing hard, the man who _was _in Paris dropped another punition into his mouth; just because he didn't have an appetite didn't mean that he wasn't going to eat the cookies he'd taken. Chewing it to bits, he spoke into the transmitter end of his phone, interrogatively uttering just one word: "When?"

He knew that the other man would know exactly what he was referring to and exactly how to respond to it, and sure enough he got his answer a mere second later.

"Just about ten minutes ago. I would've called earlier, but I didn't want to contact you until I was absolutely _sure_ that he was really gone."

Though slightly annoyed at the aforementioned time gap, the dark haired man assumed with only an eight percent margin of error that the other man was telling the truth. "How many?" was his next inquiry.

"From what I've heard, almost a dozen... maybe more. No one has an exact number yet."

Next question: "Method of transportation?"

"Probably stole a vehicle of some sort from the parking lot. That's assumed to be his last known location right before he disappeared. It's highly unlikely that he'd travel on foot."

The world's greatest detective shook his head mostly to himself and replied almost immediately, the deductive part of his mind already coming up with an answer. "No, he's smarter than that. _Much _smarter. He would have planned all of this ahead of time. He's had seven years to do it..."

Still not particularly hungry but still not going to just forget about his cookies either, the same man threw one of the treats into his mouth and chewed furiously.

His contact took this momentary lapse in their conversation to make a statement of his own. "There are some things they're probably going to keep mum about to the press, so I'll stick around for a few more days and keep you updated on anything the media hasn't released before I leave here."

"Thank you," the detective genuinely thanked his contact, "that is most appreciated. There will be a rather large bonus transferred to your international checking account within the next five minutes for your troubles. Regardless of what happens, though, please continue to monitor the situation and relay anything you can find back to me. I would prefer it if you would use text messages, multimedia messages or e-mail to communicate this information to me rather than over the phone verbally, if it wouldn't be too much trouble."

He could clearly hear the other man attempt to stifle a gasp of surprise and waited a few moments for him to collect himself.

"N-No, i-it's no trouble at all, Deneuve!" he stuttered, obviously shocked at what had been mentioned in terms of the rather unexpected bonus he would soon be receiving. "I-I'll keep you updated as often as I can, and I'll send you a message letting you know that I'm leaving when there's nothing left to scavenge here. Okay, I gotta go; too many people around right now. Oh, and... th-thank you for the, uh... th-the b-bonus."

"Understood. Please report back to me when you've found something." He was about to hang up when he decided to add as an afterthought, "Keep up the good work."

Not waiting for a response from his contact, he terminated the call and allowed the hand holding his iPhone to drop limply to his side. Glancing at his other hand still suspended in midair, he noticed that he still had three cookies left. He then placed them all in his mouth at once before grinding them to pieces with his teeth. He closed his eyes and tried to think about the sweetness of the shortbread cookies in his mouth in lieu of the... well, the _thing _he knew he had to deal with.

Seven years ago, he had asked one of his many contacts to go deep undercover as a custodian in Pelican Bay State Prison to observe Beyond Birthday. It hadn't been much of a challenge to get him on the actual prison staff's roster, but getting him into the SHU where Beyond was physically being held had been a bit more... complicated. Certain strings had been pulled and several different measures taken to do it, but in the end, it had been done nonetheless and the man had successfully managed to remain perfectly incognito during his time there. He had also asked him to address him directly as "Deneuve" if and when they ever spoke.

The dark haired detective had told him to only make "the call" when Beyond inevitably escaped and to immediately notify him of that fact, which had just been done not two minutes ago. Looking back in retrospect, he really should have been more prepared for this to happen and should have treated it as an eventuality instead of a mere _possibility_. But he had shoved it back to the very farthest corner of his mind, the corner specifically reserved for only his very darkest thoughts that were never voiced aloud. If one were to classify this mental action of his in a psychological fashion, it would have been categorized as "denial."

He never would have admitted it to another human being, but Beyond was the thing he was scared of the most in this world. He had a few smaller fears as well - such as the world suddenly running out of sweets forever one day and leaving him with nothing but _un_sweet foods to consume if he wished to survive - but Beyond Birthday was at the very top of his list when it came to things he feared. Just the very thought of that man sent eerie shivers down his spine...

Inwardly shuddering at the mental image of his failed successor, he instead drew his phone up to his face once more, but this time to make a call himself. Quickly going into his contacts section, he selected the one that was simply marked as "W" and dialed it, holding the phone up to his ear. He wasn't surprised that it was answered on the first ring.

"Yes, L?" answered the much older man on the other end.

"Watari, we have a bit of a... shall we say, _problem_?" the man called "L" half-stated, half-asked.

Had there been others in their immediate vicinity, they would have used aliases of some sort, but seeing as they were completely alone and that this was a completely secure line, there was nothing to worry about.

"...Is this the same 'problem' that you spoke of nearly seven years ago, L?" Watari asked after a few moments.

"Yes, it is," L answered. "My contact at Pelican Bay State Prison in California just called me to confirm it less than two minutes ago."

Watari sighed deeply. "I see... So, it has finally happened then?"

"Yes, it has," he replied simply. Immediately switching gears, he said, "I would like for you to book us a flight back to Winchester as soon as possible."

"Of course, L. However, the choices may be limited and there may not be any first class seats available-"

"I am not concerned about that, Watari," L cut him off. "At this point, I will take anything as long as it gets us back to England in a timely manner."

Watari was silent on the other end for a good few moments. L settling for something _less _than first class or business class on a commercial airplane? Preposterous! Although, considering the circumstances and what was involved, perhaps he really shouldn't have been too surprised...

"Yes, L; I will do that immediately. Is there anything else you require?"

"I would also like for you to electronically transfer the amount of eighty thousand U.S. dollars to my contact's international checking account; the one I have stationed at Pelican Bay as a custodian. Also, please notify me when you have the exact details of our departure for Winchester. That is all."

"Yes, L."

And with that, the conversation that had spanned less than a minute of time was over. Sighing, L dropped his phone back into his right front pocket so he could now bring his thumb up to his mouth to nibble at it. Had Watari been in the same room and seen him doing it, he would have instantly known that his young ward was distressed.

_Beyond... _he thought while staring intently out the window at the Eiffel Tower. _What are you planning...?_

He just shook his head and stuffed his hands back into his pockets, turning on his heel to shuffle back over to the table. Best to avoid that particular line of thinking for the moment. Besides, he still had to call Pelican Bay's warden and have a few choice words with him about the current situation at hand. Figuring out where Beyond was going was his number one priority right now...

He stopped at the table and bent down to choose something - well, actually a few some_things_, plural - from it, still looking straight ahead. Reaching for a handful of macarons, it was only when he didn't feel any on the platter that he glanced down to realize that there actually weren't _any_ macarons left on the platter at _all_. He scowled at the space devoid of the tart yet sweet treats, pushing his lower lip out in a characteristic pout that could have rivaled that of a toddler throwing a temper tantrum.

That just wouldn't do. Retrieving the smartphone from his pocket, he redialed Watari's number and patiently waited for him to answer the incoming call. The warden could wait; his sweets came first.

This time, Watari answered on the second ring; he must have been busy either preparing the travel arrangements or transferring the payment over to the contact in California. "Yes, L?"

"Watari... could you please have room service send up some more macarons?"

He could have sworn that he heard a barely audible exasperated sigh on the other end of the line, but perhaps that was just his imagination.

"Yes, L."

* * *

_Crescent City, California - United States of America_

_Pelican Bay State Prison - Warden's Office_

_August 22, 2009_

_2243 hours_

"Look, Gerald, we _have _to tell him!" said Assistant Warden Richard Forrester to his friend and superior.

Warden Gerald Zisman sighed heavily and absentmindedly nodded his head, propping his elbows up onto his polished mahogany desk as he clasped both hands together and rested his forehead against them. "I _know_ that, Rich. I know..."

The thunderstorm raged outside, a tumultuous combination of wind and rain that pelted the glass windows of the warden's office as he struggled to find the courage to do what he knew had to be done. The worst possible scenario that could have happened concerning the most infamous inmate here just _did_, and all while under his watch, too. He currently felt like the unluckiest man alive right now and would have done anything to trade places with the man who was the _second_-unluckiest as long as it meant he no longer had the responsibility of having to explain this particular foul-up to the world's greatest detective. God, this was even worse than that riot back in 2000...

Releasing another deep sigh, the fifty-eight-year-old man sat back heavily in his chair, removing his prescription glasses to tiredly rub at his eyes. "What should I tell him?" he asked for the younger's opinion.

"Just tell him the truth," Forrester advised. "I mean, for God's sake Gerald, he _is _the world's greatest detective after all! If you lie to him, it'll only be a matter of time before he figures out the truth, and that's _if _he isn't able to immediately tell that you're being _un_truthful. Hell, I'll bet he can even read minds or something..."

Zisman just rolled his eyes behind the fingers covering them. Well, to be fair to his second-in-charge, he probably should have expected that kind of response from him right at this moment...

After a few more moments of brooding over the imminent event he was dreading with all of his heart and soul, he sighed heavily and removed his hands from in front of his face, setting them on his desk in a professional manner. Where there had previously been anxiety and dread on his face, there was now only determination and a steely look of courage. It was entirely faux of course, but he needed to show his closest subordinate how a superior such as himself handled situations like this.

Sighing once more, he put his glasses back on, took a deep breath, and reached for the corded phone on his desk. His hand was trembling in midair - though he tried to still it - as he prepared to pick up the phone and dial the number that L had given him seven years ago should this ever happen. He was just about to do both of those very things when that same phone on his desk rang.

He froze, eyes widening and mouth falling open as his skin paled. That couldn't be... oh God, did he already _know_? No, that was impossible; Beyond had broken out just ten minutes ago. Not even the press knew about this yet. Hell, the Del Norte County Sheriff's Office was probably just responding to this event only now, and that was right here in Crescent City!

So how in the hell could a man most likely not even on the same continent as himself already know about this?! Unless... well, unless he somehow had some kind of surveillance system set up to monitor the prison itself. As far as he knew, there weren't any new cameras or sensors installed here at Pelican Bay within the last seven years, so the only logical hypothesis he could come up with for this was that...

...there must have been a mole somewhere here in the prison.

He was rudely jolted back to the harsh reality of his current situation with another electronic ring of the phone before him on the desk. Swallowing hard, he slowly sat forward ever so slightly in his chair to check the caller ID. Sure enough, it was in fact L.

He inwardly groaned as he took hold of the phone in a completely jittery hand. Had someone walked in on him at that very moment and not known who he was or any prior knowledge as to what he was about to do, they very well could have mistaken the nervously shaking appendage for someone afflicted with Parkinson's disease. He glanced up one last time at Forrester, giving him a desperate look that said something between the lines of "Help me" and "Should I answer it?"

Forrester just nodded toward the phone, obviously urging his superior to take the call; he didn't really want to think about what would happen if he missed it and forced the world's greatest detective to make a _second _phone call. To him at least, that was just about the equivalent of putting the President of the United States on hold.

Reluctantly, Zisman picked up the phone and closed his eyes as he held the receiver to his ear. "Hello?" he croaked out weakly.

"Warden Zisman," a distorted voice came through on the other side.

Zisman visibly shuddered as if he'd just stepped out from a well heated log cabin into a full-on blizzard. Oh _yes_, that was L all right.

"Beyond Birthday has escaped your prison at some point within the last ten minutes, has he not?" the voice asked cryptically.

Zisman winced. The fact that he had said "_your_ prison" only filled him with more dread. "Y-Yes, h-he has," he stuttered. For perhaps a nanosecond, he considered asking L just how he knew about this sensitive fact, and then that nanosecond passed just as quickly as it had come. _Bad _line of thinking there.

"And he has either killed or injured multiple members of the staff employed at your prison whilst executing this escape, has he not?"

There it was again, that "your prison." He shuddered as he replied with, "Y-Yes, he has. Perhaps a dozen corrections officers are either dead or in need of extensive medical care."

"Do you have any knowledge as to how he left the immediate area of your prison, _Warden_ Zisman?"

Oh, great; now he was intentionally adding the "warden" title to the "your prison" bit to drive the nail already way down in the coffin just a _little _deeper. Zisman had no doubt that the man on the other line was absolutely furious, so it was with some trepidation that he took a moment to carefully choose his next words. "W-Well, w-we figured that he pr-probably stole an employee's vehicle from the parking lot o-outside. B-But it hasn't been confirmed yet, so w-we're not completely s-sure about that..."

"How did this happen?"

Oh, God. This was the question he'd dreaded answering the most before he had picked up this phone. What was he supposed to tell him? He'd escaped by tunneling out of his cell? Blown the door containing him off its hinges with homemade explosives? Stolen the keys from a guard's belt while they weren't looking?

These scenarios were all ridiculous and utterly _impossible_, he very well knew, but for some reason he felt that any one of them would be easier to say other than what had _really _happened. However, as Forrester had said, if he was dishonest with L, it would only be a matter of time before he uncovered the truth and became even _angrier _because he'd been lied to in the very first place. And he most certainly did _not_ want to piss off L any more than he already had, so... yes, better to tell the truth than lie about the situation at hand.

"He was i-in the exercise room in his section of the SHU when he apparently a-attacked the two corrections officers escorting him b-back to his cell. Somehow, he must have gotten past the Security Squad, unlocked every door out of the SHU into the general population section of the prison, and then... gotten away."

"Was he on any kind of antipsychotic at the time of his escape?"

"N-No, we haven't given him anything like that in several years. We initially tried experimenting with different levels of dosages and mixes of medication to see what would work, but if anything, they only seemed to make him even more violent and delusional than he already was. At one point, we thought he'd finally calmed down when he was on a high dosage of Clozaril for a stretch of five or six months, but it just ended up having the same result. That was when we decided that there was nothing else we could do for him."

"I imagine that these medications were all delivered to him via his daily meals, Mr. Zisman?"

"Uh, y-yes, they were. The very first time we administered any sort of drug, we attempted to give him an injection manually, but he, um... tried to bite off the ear of one of the doctors on the medical staff. From that point onward, we figured he was simply too violent and unpredictable to treat directly, so we came up with an idea to mix it in with his food in such a way that he wouldn't even be able to taste it any time he ate."

"I am quite sure he realized that he was being medicated at that time, Mr. Zisman," L stated matter-of-factly. "However... considering the circumstances, that was probably the best course of action to be taken; after all, he would have no choice but to either eat the food he needed to survive containing antipsychotics or starve to death."

"Yes, force feeding him would have been a huge challenge, and any sort of therapy was simply out of the question. However, in the past few years, he's surprisingly been rather cooperative with the staff and his daily procedures. He was even considered to be... a model prisoner. I... I just don't understand why he picked this night in particular to escape. Granted, the weather and time of day were quite adequate for such a thing, but-"

L cut him off. "This is seven years to the day that he was arrested for the LABB murders, Mr. Zisman," he reminded him.

The warden's eyes widened to nearly comical proportions. Hastily checking the date on the calendar on the wall, he saw that it was, in fact, August 22; the same day that Naomi Misora had arrested Birthday on the suspicion of killing three innocent people right here in the state of California.

God. Why had he never considered this happening?

Almost as if reading the other man's thoughts, L added, "I cannot fully place the blame on you though, Mr. Zisman; I am afraid that Beyond would have escaped from Pelican Bay regardless of the time or weather, no matter what sort of methods were employed to prevent it from happening."

Zisman gasped. "Y-You mean that you... you _knew _this would happen?"

"Not exactly, no," L replied without missing a beat. "However, I had estimated that there was approximately an eighty-eight percent chance of him choosing the date of August 22 as his day of escape. If not today on _this_ particular August 22, then any other August 22 between when he was first incarcerated and the day he died, which I knew for a fact would _not _be in a prison cell."

The warden of Pelican Bay momentarily forgot that he was speaking to the world's greatest detective and impulsively said the very first thing that came to his mind in response to those words. "So, this was all just a... a _test_? A test to see if my people and I were _capable _of containing him here?! How could you have kept this from me?! People are _dead _now!"

L picked up on the anger searing through the other man's words almost immediately and did _not _like it one single bit. He absolutely _hated _it when others challenged his authority. He verbalized the next sentence very slowly and clearly, making sure he put enough space in between each word to get his point across.

"...Are you questioning my methods, Mr. Zisman?" The words were uttered softly and monotonically, but were just as fierce as they would have been had he chosen to raise his voice.

Zisman instantly blanched at that, suddenly remembering that he was on the phone with (quite possibly) the most powerful man in the world. "N-No, n-not at all, L! I-I was just s-suggesting that-!"

"You were suggesting that my methods are unethical and quite possibly _illegal_, that I do not care about what happens to you or anyone else at your prison as long as Beyond is imprisoned within its walls," L finished for him, voice slightly louder this time.

Zisman was desperately beginning to backtrack. "N-No, certainly not! L, I was only s-saying that-!"

"Do you know that I personally vouched to have Beyond Birthday given capital punishment, Mr. Zisman? That I _fought _to have him administered the death penalty by the state of California because of what I _knew_ would inevitably happen if he were instead sentenced to life without parole? Are you aware that I was outvoted by just _two _justices of the U.S. Supreme Court in the final decision to have him executed, that President David Hoope did _not _overturn the end result despite the reasoning I _explicitly_ gave to him behind my choice?"

Warden Zisman's mouth hung wide open, attempting to put words and sentences in the forms of desperate apologies and viable excuses together. But his brain would not allow him to do so, and he remained silent while L finished his piece. Luckily for him, it ended up being the wiser choice.

There was a brief pause on the other end of the line.

"As I said before, though," L chose to lower his voice back to its normal volume used for speaking, "the blame cannot be entirely placed upon your shoulders, Mr. Zisman; there is not a single prison on the face of this earth that could contain Beyond Birthday, even if one were specially constructed just to hold only him. It is because of this reason that I thank you for holding him in Pelican Bay State Prison as long as you have, and I also apologize for the damages - both human and material - that have been dealt to your institution because of this tragic event. I will personally compensate you for the structural damages dealt to the prison in Beyond's wake, as well as the victims of his wrath - both living and dead - and the families of those victims; it is the least I can do as condolence for what has happened."

L's tone suddenly shifted from apologetic and even understanding to ominous and cautionary.

"However, Mr. Zisman, please do not question my authority or methods _ever_ again. Much as I appreciate the work you do for the state of California to ensure the safety of its people, I am quite sure that there is another candidate out there who would be more than willing to occupy the vacant space left in your absence should you suddenly decide to _retire_ from your position sometime in the near future. Oh, and I would _highly_ suggest that you reevaluate your prison's architecture and the methods by which security is maintained throughout the entire complex; after all, though the only realistic way that Beyond could have been stopped from escaping would have been to put a bullet through his head, there is always room for improvement where it can be made. Good day to you, Mr. Zisman."

And with that, the conversation was terminated. Zisman sat absolutely stock-still for nearly a minute, a sweaty hand gripping the phone so hard he believed he might have actually broken it had he squeezed it any harder. It was only when he noticed a younger looking hand waving in front of his face that he looked up to see Forrester trying to get his attention.

The younger man breathed out a sigh of relief. "Jesus, Gerald, I thought you were having a heart attack for a second there!" Throughout the entire conversation, he had been nervous, anxious, and even frightened as to what was being said on the other end of that line and he honestly felt for his superior; he wouldn't trade places with him for all the money in the world right now.

The older man sighed as well, though his was a result of exasperation rather than relief. "I think I very well just may have," he said as he replaced the phone back in its cradle, slumping back into his seat tiredly.

Forrester was about to comment further right before his cell phone rang. The sound caused Warden Zisman to look up from his polished desk to the man in front of it reaching for his phone. Furrowing his brow, Forrester took the phone out of his pocket and gave the screen a questioning glance.

"Who is it?" Zisman asked curiously.

"One of the guards," Forrester replied, briefly holding the phone out for the older man to see for himself before opening it up. "Must be something important..."

He then accepted the call and held the phone up to his ear. Zisman leaned forward to listen intently, wondering why a corrections officer was calling the assistant warden at a moment like this.

"Hello? Yes, I'm with the warden right now. Why, did you find something? I'm sorry, say that again; there was a clap of thunder in the background right as you spoke and I couldn't quite hear you." The man's eyes suddenly widened. "He _what_?!" he exclaimed incredulously.

He covered the transmitter with a hand and turned around to give the warden a quick once-over (non-sexually, of course) before turning his back to him and lowering his voice.

"All right, well... do you know where he went with it? You _don't_? Oh shit, this isn't good. Okay. Okay, I'll tell him. Um... call me back if you find anything else, all right? Okay, bye."

Pocketing the small cell phone and sighing deeply, Assistant Warden Forrester slowly turned back to face Warden Zisman, who was regarding him with a curious and somewhat apprehensive expression.

"Yes?" he asked after a few moments of silence.

Forrester ran a hand through his short black hair. "That was, um... that was a guard outside who was with one of the search teams. He called me from the parking lot."

The warden gave him a questioning sort of look. "Yes, what about it?"

"Well, that was where Beyond Birthday was last seen before he left the area, and they figured they might be able to find some clues around there. He seemed to have killed a yard gunner who attempted to shoot him while he was running off, and he also shot out a floodlight. The last thing they found was... an empty parking space where a car should have been." He grimaced at that last part, clearly knowing something the other man didn't.

"So he _did _steal a car from the prison," Zisman remarked, slightly wincing at the mention of the dead yard gunner but also slightly smiling at the fact that they now knew how he'd gotten away. He looked up at his second-in-command with newly found determination in his eyes. "Well, that's good to know at least. Do they know exactly _which _car it was and who it belonged to?"

Forrester bit his lip, shifting from foot to foot nervously as he looked away. Scratching the back of his head, he nervously laughed. "Well, that's the thing. It was... um..." he trailed off, closing his eyes and unable to complete the sentence.

Zisman was now a little upset. He was the warden of Pelican Bay State Prison, damn it! He had every _right _to know every little thing that went on here, _especially_ anything involved in a prison escape attempt! "What, Forrester? Whose was it? Come on, we don't have all day here!" he raised his voice a bit.

Forrester sighed heavily, before opening his eyes and slowly turning to face the older man sitting at the desk before him. Well, he'd asked for it, so here it was. "The car that Beyond Birthday took from the parking lot... it was _yours_, Gerald."

The warden's entire demeanor of rekindled determination and confidence was swept away in one swift stroke with those words from the younger man before him. He shook his head in incredulity and leaned forward, looking Forrester right in the eyes.

"He... He took _what_?"

* * *

_United States of America_

_U.S. Route 101 - Somewhere in between Crescent City, CA and Los Angeles, CA_

_August 23, 2009_

_1009 hours_

Eleven hours of driving later, the _new _owner of that same car tapped the steering wheel in rhythm to the drum beat of Metallica's "Enter Sandman" as it blasted through the radio, humming along to James Hetfield's lyrics. He was hardly one for music in general, but similar to this car, he could still appreciate classics. The song slowly began to fade out as he hit eighty miles per hour and he listened to the DJ as he proceeded to commentate on the previously played song.

"Okay, that was 'Enter Sandman' from Metallica's eponymous '91 album," the man on the other end of the speaker smoothly voiced, "or as you guys probably know it, _The Black Album_. Interestingly enough, that's the very same album which..."

Beyond began tuning out the DJ in favor of taking a better look at an upcoming billboard some three hundred feet ahead. On it was an advertisement for some kind of toothpaste, but he was much more interested in what lay _behind _the structure rather than what was posted _on _it. He estimated that there was a seventy-nine percent chance of either a squad car or a police motorcycle being parked right behind it with a radar gun in a nice little speed trap.

A sinister grin slowly found its way to his scarred face as a rather fun idea came to his mind. _Let's play a little game with California's finest, _he thought excitedly.

When he was within fifty feet or so of the billboard, he accelerated as fast as he could and glanced off to the side to see if anyone was even behind the board. Sure enough, as luck would have it, there sat a 2009 Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor with two officers of the California Highway Patrol inside, no doubt monitoring traffic speeds. He returned his gaze to the road in front of him and grinned wider as he pushed the car to an even higher speed.

As he took a glance in the rearview mirror at the still stationary police car behind the billboard, the words of the rock radio station's DJ brought his attention back to it. Apparently, he was about to play another song. Beyond turned the volume up a little louder to hear the man's voice over the sounds of the engine and wind as the latter whipped through his dark hair.

"...but anyway, that's enough about that. All right, now this is something a little more recent. Here's Drowning Pool's hit single from their 2001 debut album, _Sinner_. It's 'Bodies' here on X-Rock."

Immediately after he finished saying this, the specified track began playing with repetitive whispering of the song's opening lyrics by the band's late lead singer, Dave Williams. Quirking a brow, Beyond turned the volume up even louder right before the actual music came in. As the song progressed, he couldn't help but take an acute interest in it because of both the lyrical content and musical genre.

_Interesting, _he thought. _Very interesting..._

* * *

"_Je_sus, you see how _fast_ that guy was going?!" Officer Logan Braddock exclaimed incredulously to his partner whilst pointing at the bright red muscle car flying down Route 101 that had just zipped right past them.

"Yeah, man," Sergeant Wesley Creighton nodded in affirmation as he pulled the radar gun back into the car, tapping the digital numerical display. "I clocked him doin' ninety-three!"

"In a _seventy_?! That guy's fuckin' nuts!" Braddock then looked between the gun and the speeding vehicle before glancing back up at his partner. "Well shit, man, let's go get him!"

Sergeant Creighton nodded with a chuckle, putting the radar gun down before starting up the car. "You read my mind. Haven't had a perp in a while, anyway." Putting the vehicle into drive, he took off down the long stretch of asphalt road after the speeding car as the sirens were switched on. Glancing over at his partner, he asked, "Hey, you want him when we get him?"

Braddock thought about it for a moment before shaking his head. "Nah, man, you can get him. I'll just stay here in case you need backup."

Sergeant Creighton simply shrugged as he stepped even harder on the gas. "Your loss, rookie." He then chuckled at the annoyed expression he caught on the other man's face out of the corner of his eye.

"I _told _you to stop calling me that..." he grumbled mostly to himself, ignoring the laughter from the man beside him.

Much as he tried to hide it, though, he couldn't help but give just a slight smile himself. He didn't really _like _the nickname, per se, but... well, he could let it slide this time. Had it been from _another_ officer on the force, though, he more than likely would have gotten a little pissed.

* * *

When Beyond caught sight of the squad car giving chase with lights and sirens on, he smiled in the rearview mirror. "Ah, so the cavalry arrives!"

Eyeing a certain spot on the side of the road, Beyond began to slow the car down and gradually pulled off onto the shoulder. He soon came to a complete stop and put the car in park before shutting it off. Checking the passenger seat beside him, he made sure the Mini-14 rifle was loaded with the safety off, strategically moving it in such a way that whoever came to the driver side window wouldn't notice it at first due to his body blocking it.

Cracking his neck, he put his hands at the ten and two o'clock positions, staring straight ahead and relaxing his muscles as he patiently waited for an officer to step out of the Interceptor and approach him. He smiled into the mirror as several ideas began flooding his mind concerning how he would get rid of these two pesky men.

_Oh, I'm going to have _lots _of fun with you two! _he thought inwardly with an outward cackle.

* * *

As the car stopped on the shoulder, Creighton followed close behind until he was at an appropriate distance away from it. Glancing sideways at his partner, he put the Interceptor in park and unbuckled his seat belt.

Braddock couldn't help but comment on the vehicle in front of them. "Damn," he whistled, "that is a _nice _looking Challenger!" He then glanced over at his partner. "R/T coupe?"

"Yep," the other confirmed. "1970, too."

Braddock shook his head in disbelief. "Lucky bastard," he murmured. "Wish _I _could afford something like that..."

Creighton just shrugged as he opened the door and exited the car. "Hey, spend enough time on the force to work up a nice big 401(k) plan, and maybe you will once you retire."

Leaving his partner behind to reflect on the optimism of the other man, that very same "other man" proceeded from his vehicle to the suspect's before him. As he drew nearer to the parked vehicle in front of him, Sergeant Creighton was already going through every possible explanation or excuse the driver would more than likely give him.

_Hmm, now let's go through the mental list here, _he thought. _"Really, I was doing ninety-three?! Geez, I thought I was only going like eighty!" "Oh officer, I'm so sorry! I'm running late for a meeting and I just wanted to get there in a reasonable amount of time." "Oh, I _never _go that fast, officer! I'm a perfectly good law abiding citizen. Really, this must have just been a one-time thing!" "Ninety-three, you said? Are you sure that thing isn't broken?"_

Oh, he'd heard it all. Hell, maybe this guy would even come up with a brand new one...

As he neared the car, he stopped at the "A"-frame and leaned down. Had he taken but just a few more moments of observation, he might have noticed the prison jumpsuit that the man was wearing and maybe even what his face looked like. Instead, he just immediately went through the usual procedure of a highway stop, too focused on the task at hand to pay closer attention to minor details.

"Do you know why I pulled you over, sir?" he asked.

The man shifted in his seat a little, still looking straight ahead. "Hmm," he hummed in thought while tapping his chin with a long, slender finger. "Was it because... I was going a bit fast, _officer_?" he asked, purposefully emphasizing the last word.

"Yes, actually. I clocked you doing ninety-three miles per hour in a seventy mile-per-hour zone. Here in the state of California, that's considered speeding. License and registration, please."

"Oh, most _certainly_, officer!" the driver chuckled.

Sergeant Creighton quirked an eyebrow. _Sounds like he might be on something, _he thought in suspicion. After all, most people didn't laugh and cheerfully hand over their personal information to the same police officer that had just pulled them over... well, not unless they were on some kind of narcotic. _Or maybe he's just being a smartass..._

It was only a few seconds later when the driver slowly turned his head to look right at him with a devious grin that Sergeant Creighton realized who he was really talking to and that the man in the car was neither high nor being sarcastic with him in the least bit; he had genuinely _meant _what he'd said. His eyes widened and he gasped. _O-Oh my God, is that... is that... Beyond Birthday? _his brain raced frantically as his eyes carefully scrutinized the many scars decorating the man's face from the burns he'd sustained seven years ago.

Those scars, those eyes, _that smile_... there was only one individual on the face of this planet whom they could all belong to: Beyond Birthday.

Beyond Birthday, the same man who had murdered three people in Los Angeles, tried to commit suicide by pouring gasoline on himself and burning to death, and the very same man who had been sentenced to life without parole at Pelican Bay. That last chronological event told him that he must have recently escaped; probably last night or maybe even today, in fact. He should have reached for the Smith & Wesson Model 4006 semi-automatic pistol at his hip, and yet... _he couldn't_. He was paralyzed, _frozen _in shock and fear at the mere thought of being this close to a world famous serial killer. His instincts screamed at him to draw his weapon on this man and order him to step out of the car with his hands on his head, but his brain just simply couldn't decide whether he should stay and fight or leave and run away.

This was probably why he didn't have enough time react to the thin, pale hand that suddenly reached out to grab the collar of his uniform and yank him forward. That very movement was what jolted him back to reality and made him reach for his sidearm, but he didn't even have a chance to _touch_ his gun before Beyond slammed him face first into the section of the car's roof right above his driver side window. He then shoved the man roughly away from the car, his body hitting the hot pavement with a heavy thud as he held his now-broken nose with one hand while reaching for his gun with the other.

Beyond laughed to himself as he quickly retrieved the hidden rifle from the passenger seat.

* * *

Officer Braddock was still in the squad car staring off absentmindedly into the desert horizon when something out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. Curiously, he turned his head in the direction of where that movement was, and what he saw caused his face to drain completely of its color and his skin to crawl.

There, lying by the suspect's car and reaching for his gun was Braddock's very own police partner, Sergeant Creighton. He appeared to have sustained some kind of injury to his face because the hand that wasn't reaching for the .40 caliber pistol sheathed on his hip was covering his nose. He was just barely able to make out the blood running down his face and over his fingers from his position in the passenger seat of the squad car.

"The _fuck_?!" he exclaimed loudly, incredulously.

With shaking hands, he hastily took the 12-gauge Remington Model 870 Police Magnum out of its mount and frantically checked the ejection port to be absolutely one hundred percent _sure_ that it was fully loaded. Satisfied with the weapon's condition, he quickly opened the passenger side door and exited the vehicle to step out into the stifling heat. He probably should have radioed his situation back to the station so backup could arrive in a timely manner, but his gut instinct told him that his partner's life was in danger and that he had to act right _now_.

* * *

Sergeant Creighton brought his gun up to point it at Beyond right as Beyond stuck the barrel of his rifle out the open window and aimed it straight at Sergeant Creighton's head. Creighton was just switching off the safety of his weapon and was a split-second away from actually firing it when a bullet from the driver's own gun struck him square in the forehead. His head jerked back as the shot created a small entrance wound before bursting out the back of it, bringing bits of brain and skull with it as well.

He then laid completely motionless, eyes still open and hand tightly wound around his gun as blood pooled around his head, red intermixing with the black pavement below it. He didn't even have a chance to cry out, as the shot had instantly killed him the very moment it had entered his brain cavity. Beyond shook with laughter at the sight of the dead man in front of him.

* * *

Braddock froze completely in place when he saw a muzzle flash out of the driver side window and witnessed his partner's head being practically blown off by the shot, the deafening bang making him start only slightly compared to what he'd just seen happen. His eyes widened and his body slightly shivered in fear.

"C-Creighton?" he whispered.

But he knew the man was dead. He had been shot right through the head with a semi-automatic rifle from a mere five feet away; no one could survive something like that. Fury and hatred pumped through his veins and his head shot up to see the assailant exiting his vehicle. He brought his shotgun up and pointed it directly at the man, training the barrel on his midsection; he was brandishing the same rifle he'd just shot Creighton with.

"_Freeze, asshole_!" he shouted. "Drop the fucking gun _right now_!"

The other man only looked up at him with a smile before bringing his rifle up, preparing to fire at the policeman. But Officer Braddock was faster and squeezed the trigger to discharge the 12-gauge slug from the barrel of his Remington 870, barely registering the feeling of the powerful weapon's recoil through the red haze he was seeing and the adrenaline rush buzzing through his body like a man who'd had too much alcohol to drink. The driver was sent flying backwards by the shot, crashing to the ground and landing hard on his back as the rifle he was holding clattered to the pavement a few feet beside him.

Officer Braddock panted heavily, the red sluggishly disappearing from his vision and his normal bodily senses gradually returning to him. He slowly lowered the smoking shotgun, cocking back the forestock to expel the spent shell from the ejection port and then pushing it forward again to chamber the next round. Briefly glancing at the white clad driver he'd shot still lying on the pavement, apparently motionless, he only assumed that the man was dead.

He thought about calling this entire event in, but he suddenly remembered that the whole reason for doing so was because his partner had just been killed. Slowly turning to look at said man, he felt the bile rise up in his throat just at the sight of the gunshot wound clear through his head. He took several slow steps toward the body, almost tripping over his own feet along the way at the horrid sight.

As he neared his deceased partner, he realized that Sergeant Creighton's eyes were still open and promptly covered his mouth with one hand, shutting his own eyes tight and looking away. The bile began to surface again and he dropped to his knees, ignoring the pain he felt when they connected with the hard pavement below him. Opening his eyes, he dropped the shotgun next to him in favor of getting on his hands and knees and involuntarily dry heaving.

Despite being an officer of the California Highway Patrol, he had never been involved in an actual gunfight before; hell, the worst he'd ever seen in his relatively short time of service was a minor car accident when some guy had accidentally hit a coyote and killed it with his car. He'd never shot anyone, never had to deal with a murder victim, never seen a fellow policeman shot through the head and collapse to the ground in a pool of his own blood...

That last thought was the one that sent him over the edge. He briefly gagged just before vomiting, coughing and gasping for breath as it lasted much longer than he had hoped it would. The foul taste of bile and stomach acid remained in his mouth, throat burning and eyes watering.

Still, despite all of this, he crawled on his hands and knees over to the body of his partner. He tried to block out the smell of blood and cranial matter from his nose, but it was futile; it was all he _could _smell. When he reached the corpse, he grabbed Creighton's shirt and used it to pull himself up until he was at about eye level with him.

His eyes, still burning from the regurgitation of his previous meal only moments ago, now burned even more intensely when tears began to form in them. He tried to blink them back, tried to push them down inside of himself to avoid dealing with it until later when the time and place were both more appropriate, but it was in vain; in mere seconds, he went from a distressed policeman who had just witnessed a terrible tragedy to an absolute emotional wreck. He sobbed over the chest of his dead friend, tears spilling out onto the tan uniform and creating small individual wet spots each time they touched the soft fabric.

"Aww, now that is just absolutely _precious_!" a voice suddenly cackled from above.

Gasping, his eyes widened to the size of dinner plates and he quickly turned around to see the very same man he'd just shot standing over him. It was only when he looked at his chest that he realized what had happened; at the time he was shot, he had been wearing a _bulletproof vest_ underneath that white jumpsuit of his. The proof of that lied right in front of him where a large hole had been ripped into the midsection of the jumpsuit, the distinct sight of the dark vest underneath now visible. In the same section of that vest where he'd been shot was a dent the size of a 12-gauge slug round fired from about thirty feet away or so.

Officer Braddock paled at the realization of all this and instinctively dove for his shotgun, but Beyond had anticipated this move and struck the policeman upside the head with the stock of the Mini-14 rifle he was holding. Braddock grunted as he collapsed to the pavement, feeling the blood trickle down his face from the small gash now in his temple as the white hot pain nearly rendered him unconscious. But he was able to fight through it, focusing his vision on the killer in front of him. The sick bastard was smiling widely down at him in an almost mocking manner, and for some reason, he dropped the loaded rifle in his hands and allowed it to clatter to the hot pavement.

Braddock was momentarily confused, but then realized that he now had the upper hand; all he had to do was draw the .40 caliber semi-automatic pistol at his hip, put one right through the fucker's head and end this. However, had he known what this man was going to do to him in less than a minute's time, he probably would have prayed for a quick death from him rather than attempting to prolong his own eventual death in such a manner.

With renewed energy, he quickly stood up and withdrew his handgun, aiming it directly at the killer's pale forehead obscured by thick black bangs and took the safety off. What he hadn't expected was a sudden kick from the man in front of him that knocked the gun right out of his hand, disarming him instantly. He gasped and just narrowly avoided another calculated kick, backing up while reaching for his Taser.

But the other man was faster and he roughly tackled the officer to the ground, pinning his arms and legs to the pavement below with his own. Braddock tried to get the air back into his body as he felt it knocked out of him, attempting to get this crazed man off of him. He was rewarded for this struggle a few moments later with a devastatingly effective headbutt from the other man, crying out in pain as the blow struck him right beneath the eye.

Beyond just laughed above him, grip loosening up on the officer's arms and legs. "Now, now," he began to rise up into a standing position while letting the limbs go, "play nice."

Officer Braddock suddenly stopped struggling, body completely stilling when he saw the killer turn his back toward him and began to slowly walk away in the opposite direction. What... What the hell? Was this guy honestly _that_ stupid?

It was then that he remembered his sidearm and quickly looked around for it. He spotted it lying only ten feet or so away from him and he hastily got up to make a run for it, ignoring the blinding pain in his temple and cheek all the while. Scooping it up off the ground when he reached it, he picked it up and had it risen about halfway in the air when he saw his own 12-gauge shotgun in the other man's grasp, barrel aiming directly at him.

He just barely registered what was about to happen maybe a thousandth of a second before it actually did; before he was able to even get the gun fully raised to aim it at the suspect in front of him, an ungodly amount of pain zipped through his entire right arm. A flash of red flew across his immediate field of vision and he could no longer feel the gun in his grip. In fact, he couldn't feel _anything_ below about mid-forearm level.

Disoriented and in an incredible amount of pain, Officer Braddock slowly raised a shaking right arm up to his eye level and was utterly horrified at what he saw. Everything below the middle of his forearm was now all but gone; skin, muscles, tendons and bones hanging off of the limb and sticking out at unnatural angles. Blood spurted from the major wound, coating what was left of his arm and the paved road beneath him a crimson red.

And when he slowly looked up at the smoking barrel of the shotgun in front of him, it was with a sick sense of dread that he comprehended what had just occurred: this man, whoever he was, had just practically blown off his entire right arm with his _own weapon_. Yet, he didn't scream in agony. He didn't collapse to the road and writhe around in pain. He didn't even have that same angry look he previously did in his eyes when Sergeant Creighton had been murdered right before his very eyes.

He just stood there, completely bewildered and dumbfounded at what had just happened.

Curiously raising an eyebrow, Beyond just shrugged to himself and cocked the shotgun twice before walking up to the officer of the California Highway Patrol before him. The man looked at Beyond confusedly, almost as if he couldn't decide if he were truly real or just a horrible figment of his imagination. Beyond simply grabbed the man by his shirt collar and hoisted him up to carry him several feet over to the squad car. Ignoring the warm blood occasionally spurting against his chest, he heavily dropped Officer Braddock on the hood of the car and stretched out his muscles, rolling his neck and loudly popping several joints throughout his body.

"You know, I have to say," he commented as he pulled down the upper half of his prison jumpsuit before beginning to remove the bulky bulletproof vest from underneath it, "that kind of hurt. A 12-gauge slug right in the chest? Geez, I'm gonna have a nice, big bruise there for a while!" He gave the officer a small, sad, almost pouty expression as he rubbed said bruise with a hand before letting his expression slip into a demented grin. "However, for some reason I think it's pretty safe to say that my injury will only be temporary, while yours will be a bit more... _permanent_. Yours doesn't quite seem to be the kind that's cured by a few Tylenol and some ginger ale, that's for sure!"

He threw his head back with a hearty laugh as he dropped the vest to the ground, eventually sobering and bending down to grab the other gun with the hand that wasn't currently holding the shotgun. Looking between the two of them, he lifted a foot up to step on Officer Braddock's chest, subtly pressing him down into the car's hood even further. Bringing both weapons up to aim them directly at Braddock's head, he leaned down a bit more.

"Well, seeing as how these are _your _weapons, Officer-" he paused for a brief moment to glance at the name tag on his shirt, "-_Braddock_, I suppose it's only fair that you get to choose which one I should use to kill you with!" He smiled cheerily down at the man below him on the hood of the car before lifting up both weapons one at a time to accentuate his next words. "Now, would you like me to shoot you with the Remington or the Smith & Wesson? Ooh, or maybe even _both _at the same time?! Oh, can we do that? I really like that idea!"

He leaned down to catch the officer's response, head extending ever so slightly to hear him better. Even while drifting in and out of consciousness and rapidly losing blood by the second, Officer Braddock gingerly raised himself up on shaky elbows and narrowed his eyes.

"_Fuck_... _you_... _asshole_," he was able to get out just barely above a whisper.

Beyond pulled his head back to regard the bleeding man beneath him with a seemingly mortified expression on his face. "Now, that wasn't very nice at all! Oh well, I suppose I'll just have to pick _for_ you since you're being such a naughty little boy."

Propping the shotgun up against the front of the car, he held the pistol in his right hand and pointed it at Braddock's torso. "Now to be perfectly honest, I've never shot someone in the stomach before, so please forgive me if I'm a bit off!" No sooner had he finished than did he pull the trigger to release the .40 caliber bullet in the chamber straight into the aforementioned part of the policeman's body.

This time, Braddock clearly felt the pain and he screamed out, instinctively covering the wound with both hands before realizing he only had one to do it with. He writhed uncontrollably on the hood of the car, limbs jerking around. Gritting his teeth through the pain, he felt a distinct burning sensation as well near the wound and pressed down hard upon it, trying to stop the bleeding as well as he could.

"Hmm..." Beyond tapped his chin with his index finger. "I _think _I hit your stomach, but I'm not completely sure about that."

He bent down, sniffing around briefly before grinning as he rose back to his full height once more. "Well, I do believe I have ruptured your stomach!" he laughed before commenting on the distinct smell he'd just smelt. "Oh, and that sizzling-sort-of-burning sensation you're more than likely feeling near your abdomen right now would be the gastric acid leaking out into the insides of your body from the hole that's now in your stomach; kind of like frying up some raw meat in a hot skillet filled with cooking oil, really! Ahh, isn't science great?!"

Officer Braddock would have told this man to go fuck himself up the ass had he not been on the verge of unconsciousness. All he could do now was just pray for a quick death at the hands of this psycho, but he had the feeling that he wouldn't be granted such a merciful wish as that. Coughing and sputtering, he blinked hard several times, trying to stop his vision from blurring and swimming around.

He barely registered the feeling of being yanked up and off the hood before he found himself face down on the hot pavement. He was sure it had something to do with the white clad man who was torturing him, but he really wasn't even entirely sure of _that_ at this point.

Beyond stepped on the policeman's back whilst pointing the barrel of the Model 4006 down at the back of his head, preparing to fire. "Well, now then, Officer Braddock, it's been fun playing with you and your fellow partner of the California Highway Patrol, but I'm afraid that play time is now over. Time for you to join each other in the afterlife!"

Braddock closed his eyes, hoping that this man would actually do it rather than just make empty threats. Above him, Beyond was just about to pull the trigger when something coming down the road on his left side caught his eye. Through the blinding sunlight, he was just barely able to make out a silver colored car coming down the road. Squinting and shielding his eyes from the rays assaulting his pale skin, he was able to confirm that it was not a police vehicle, but rather just an ordinary car being driven by an ordinary person.

_Oh, boy! _he thought excitedly with a smile. _More playmates!_

Walking past Braddock and out into the middle of the road, he turned around and continued walking backwards as he commented, "Now don't go anywhere, you little troublemaker, you! I'll be right back in just a few moments."

* * *

"Honey, how much longer do you think it'll be?" Nicole Pollender tentatively asked her husband sitting beside her in the driver's seat of their 1997 Honda Accord.

"I... I don't know, sweetie," he shook his head in a slightly irritated manner, trying to concentrate on the seemingly endless road before him. "Maybe thirty... forty more minutes?"

"Are you sure?" she pried.

"Yeah, pretty sure," he shrugged, not totally paying attention to the question as his wife had asked him of it at least half a dozen times within the last two hours.

Nicole quirked an eyebrow, looking up from the road map in her hands spread out across her lap. "_Pretty _sure? Albert, I thought you said that you knew where-"

"I _do_, Nicole!" he suddenly yelled. "Jesus Christ, I _know _where we're going! I would've asked you for directions if I didn't! Would _you _like to drive?!"

Nicole was taken aback, jumping slightly in her seat at this sudden outburst from her husband and holding her hands up defensively. "A-Albert, I-I'm sorry. I... I didn't mean it like that, I just..." She finally sighed, shaking her head. "I don't know what I meant. I'm just... I'm sorry for making you upset like that. Just... Just please calm down, all right?"

Albert then sighed in return, shaking his head as well and slightly lowering his gaze. "No honey, I..." he momentarily trailed off, trying to find the right words. When he did, he glanced over at her, gaze softening. "_I'm _sorry. I shouldn't have yelled at you like that. God, I just... I just want to get back home, that's all."

Nicole slowly reached for his hand, gently removing it from the steering wheel and placing it down by the gear stick between them. "Albert, it's okay, really. You've been driving for over four hours nonstop now and I know you must be tired. The next rest stop we get to, we'll switch, all right?"

Albert took a deep breath before responding. "Okay," he nodded. "Yeah, that sounds good."

"Mommy?" a small voice piped up from the back seat. "Are you and Daddy fighting?"

Nicole quickly turned. "Oh, n-no, sweetie! Daddy and I were just, um... discussing something. It's over now, though; we're all right." She gave the four-year-old girl a reassuring smile and she smiled back.

"Oh, okay."

Albert glanced into the rearview mirror at his daughter and smiled at her. "Hey, Darla; do you want to listen to your _favoritest _song in the whole wide world?"

The toddler's eyes went wide and she gasped. "Yeah, yeah, Daddy! Play it, play it!"

"What do we say first, though?" her mother corrected her.

"_Please_?" Darla begged, squirming around in her booster seat.

Nicole grinned approvingly. "_That's _better."

Nicole gave her husband a sideways glance and he caught it, smiling wider as he selected the eleventh track on the CD in the player and pressed the play button. As soon as the song began, Darla immediately began humming and singing along to it while her parents did the same. They had all heard it several dozen times at this point, but it never got old singing along to it together.

The song was "Over the Rainbow" by Olivia Newton-John from her 1989 album _Warm and Tender_, which included fourteen other children's lullabies on it. Much like most of the other songs on the album, the song currently playing wasn't _actually_ Newton-John's - as the music and lyrics had been composed and written by Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg (respectively) for the 1939 musical/fantasy film _The Wizard of Oz_ and sung by Judy Garland as Dorothy Gale in the movie itself - but the Pollenders still thoroughly enjoyed it nonetheless. Albert knew this version best from its appearance in John Woo's 1997 action-thriller _Face/Off_ - one of his personal favorite movies - but seeing as his daughter wasn't nearly old enough to watch "R" rated movies in the first place, let alone _understand_ them, the album version was its only source that Darla was familiar with.

The very first moment Albert had played the song from the Newton-John album that he and Nicole had bought specifically for Darla, their daughter had taken an immediate liking to it. It had since become a staple of theirs and they all sung along with it every time it was played; all three of them knew every word to it by heart, including Darla. Albert felt Nicole give his hand a gentle squeeze as she sang along with him and Darla and he glanced over at her. She was smiling brightly at him, and he couldn't help but smile back.

He was about to break the rhythm of his singing to tell her that he loved her when some kind of movement coming up in the middle of the road caught his attention and he turned his head to see what it was. What he saw standing in the center of the stretch of road that made up Route 101 shocked him to the core: it was a man dressed in white, covered in what appeared to be blood and brandishing what he could only guess was some sort of weapon.

He didn't have time to glance to the right and observe the aftermath of the scene that had taken place only minutes ago, as the man in the road was now pointing a small, shiny object directly at him. Nicole was just now turning to see what was holding her husband's interest, so she was only able to catch a mere glimpse of what he was staring at. By the time Albert realized what the man standing in the middle of the road was about to do, it was far too late. The very last thing he saw as he began to swerve out of the path of the man in white was that same man smiling wickedly at him, a brief flash appearing from the gun in his hand as it was fired before the .40 caliber bullet crashed through the windshield and struck him right between the eyes.

* * *

Beyond had the driver's head directly between the sights of the Model 4006 in his hand, waiting just a few more moments for him to get a bit closer before firing. The silver Honda Accord was already beginning to veer off the road - probably in an attempt to avoid running him down - when the shot hit its intended target, splattering blood and cranial matter all over the windshield and the vehicle's interior. Though it was most likely traveling at the legal speed limit, seventy miles per hour was still quite fast for a car to be going, especially when the driver was now dead and nothing solid stood in its way to stop it.

Right as it careened off the paved road and into the desert, the car went on two wheels for less than half a second before rolling over. Bits of metal, plastic and glass flew in all directions as the Accord flipped several times, leaving behind a trail of destruction in its wake. Finally, it came to a stop when it landed on its side at an odd angle, gravity causing it to fully tip over and instead fall on its roof.

Beyond was practically jumping up and down in delight, the heat of the black pavement not seeming to bother his bare feet in the slightest. He was clapping his hands with glee and even did a little Irish jig just for show. Now _that _was fun!

"Oh, _wow_!" he exclaimed, returning to a barely conscious Officer Braddock still lying on the road in front of his car where Beyond had left him. He knelt down beside him and pointed to the wreckage behind him like a toddler trying to get a parent to look at something that they were highly interested in. "Did you _see _that?! That car must've flipped three, maybe _four_ times! Whoa, that was just _amazing_! Do you think I could try that again, but maybe with a different car coming down the road? Hmm, maybe a faster one, and... oh! One filled with more people inside, too! Oh yeah, now _that _would be a lot of fun to watch!"

He began giggling in delight, waving the pistol in his hand around as if it were anything but the deadly weapon it really was before retrieving the shotgun still resting against the car. Dropping the Smith & Wesson a few feet away from Officer Braddock, he skipped over to the overturned Honda, excited to witness the extent of the damage that he'd dealt to the sedan up close and personal. Nearing it, he could already tell that the driver was dead, as most of his head was spread throughout the interior of the car.

_Hmm, I wonder if there were any passengers inside, _he contemplated. _I'm pretty sure I at least saw a woman in the front next to the driver, but- ah, here we are!_

Sure enough, the woman he'd caught a mere flash of when the Honda was still on the road was there right next to the dead man. She was upside down but still in her seat, as she had had her seat belt on at the time of the crash. She was going in and out of consciousness, blood and marrow leaking out from a compound fracture in one of her arms; compared to several minor cuts and scrapes on her body, that was her most serious injury. Smiling at the sight, he knelt down in front of her, staring at her through the broken glass of the shattered windshield and patiently waiting for her to come to her senses and notice him.

Evidently that didn't take very long, because her eyes went wide and she screamed out in terror at the sight of her husband's lifeless body beside her only a few moments later. She trembled in fear at just the sheer amount of her husband's blood all around her, too hysterical to notice that some of it was on her own body as well. Beyond tapped the Honda's front bumper with the barrel of the shotgun in his hand, pleased to see the confusion and panic in the woman's eyes as she finally saw him before her.

The next scream from her throat was just about on par with that last one when she'd noticed her dead husband beside her. In fact, Beyond couldn't decide which one he enjoyed hearing more. He just grinned in an almost friendly sort of way and cheerfully greeted her. "Hello there!" he said with a small wave.

Nicole squirmed restlessly in her seat as she continued screaming, fumbling with her seat belt and trying to get it off. Beyond laughed at the display, amused at how pitiful this woman's situation really was and the fact that she had less than a minute of life left.

"Oh, _God_!" she cried out. "Somebody _help_!"

But as Beyond knew, no help would come to save her in time; she wouldn't live long enough to see it. This thought only added to his laughter. He saw the woman look at him with terrified eyes.

"Why are you _doing _this to us?! What do you _want _from us?!"

"Oh, it's just all in good fun, my dear!" Beyond chuckled.

He didn't really hear what the woman said next, nor notice her reactions and bodily movements as she continued struggling in vain to get her seat belt undone with just one good hand. He was more focused on the female toddler in the back seat, suspended upside down from the seat belt wound tightly around her tiny body and the booster seat she was in. She appeared to have only sustained a small cut on her forehead during the crash and was seemingly unconscious.

He could virtually do whatever he wanted to the little girl, as she was in such a vulnerable position without her parents or any immediate outside help to come rescue her. He certainly would _not _molest her though, as he utterly despised child molesters and pedophiles who sexually abused children; he had often dreamt of kidnapping one of those kinds of people and slowly torturing them to death, in fact. Oh, adult-on-adult rape he was completely _fine_ with, but pedophilia and child molestation he just downright despised.

Mentally unstable as he was, he did at least have _some_ standards.

He briefly considered killing her, but then reconsidered it in just the same amount of time; he somehow believed that he wouldn't get much pleasure in murdering a toddler. He _loved _killing people, but for some reason, he didn't think that killing this little girl would be much fun for him at all.

Well... there was always option "C." Just kill her one remaining parent and leave her out here in the back seat of this wrecked car off to the side of the highway for the police and paramedics to find when they eventually arrived. After all, there was only a mere twelve percent chance that she would die out here before receiving medical attention. And when she woke up in the hospital later on and found out that her parents were no longer alive, she would doubtlessly be devastated and utterly shocked by the life changing experience she'd just been through and the additional fact that her mother and father were now gone forever.

For the rest of her life, she would forever be an orphan, forced to live out her remaining days sans the two people who had given birth to her and helped raise her. This young girl would know his pain, know what it was like to grow up without parents of any kind and to fend for her own in an orphanage where no one else wished to associate with her... unless, of course, she had other family members who were willing to take her in, but he liked the thought of this girl in an unfamiliar, run-down orphanage better. He'd never cared much for his own parents, let alone affection of any kind, but this girl had been loved and cared for by both of her parents and she had more than likely loved them back just as much; their deaths would be much more traumatizing for her than it was for him when he had found out about the deaths of his own mother and father.

Content with that particular scenario eventually playing out, he brought the shotgun up and aimed it directly at the struggling woman's head. However, he wouldn't shoot her until she looked directly into his eyes and begged for her life; it was always _so_ much more entertaining when his victims did that. The girl's mother was still crying out in fear and grabbing at her seat belt when something in her brain told her that this man wanted her attention. Her struggling ceased and she slowly turned her head to find herself literally looking down the barrel of a loaded gun.

Beyond was more than thrilled when the woman completely broke down, tears spilling from her eyes and desperate pleas dropping from her lips.

"N-No, please! P-Please, I have a daughter! Please don't sh-shoot me! Oh God, please don't kill me! Please, just-!"

Her cries were abruptly cut short when a 12-gauge shotgun slug struck her in the forehead, splattering the contents of her entire head all over the car. Her body immediately stilled and her arms dangled limply in the air from her upside down position, blood and cranial matter dripping down from the large cavity now there as bits of skull fell out of place from their fractured positions. Beyond was pleased to see that there was virtually nothing left of the woman's head at all; it had been completely cracked open like a watermelon and was just barely distinguishable as an actual part of her body because of how little of it actually remained attached to her neck.

The scene was so beautiful that he nearly cried.

He admired his work for just a few moments more before standing up and dropping the shotgun in front of the overturned Honda Accord, walking around to the side and then kneeling to take one last look at the toddler in the back seat. Oh, she would _definitely_ be in for a rude awakening sometime soon, that much was for sure.

"Enjoy your sleep while you can, little one," he half-cooed, half-stated. "Dream sweet dreams, for when you awaken, the rest of your life shall be a living _nightmare_." He cackled hysterically at that last bit and stood up to walk back to the pair of cars on the other side of the road. Perhaps he should write a children's book someday...

He nearly walked the entire distance to the Challenger before remembering that he still had one more playmate to have fun with. He abruptly turned on his heel and walked back to the Police Interceptor, eyeing the semi-conscious man lying in front of it. Stopping next to him, he turned him over using his foot with little effort. "I'm _so _sorry!" he pseudo-apologized to the policeman once he was conscious again and staring directly up into his eyes. "I almost forgot about you! Geez, I got so distracted by our other playmates over there!" he jerked his thumb over his shoulder behind him for emphasis. "Don't worry, though; we still have _plenty _of time to play!"

He then tapped his chin thoughtfully, tapping his foot as well in a contemplative manner. "The only problem is that I don't know what game we should play next! We've already played some of my favorite ones, but I want to do something we haven't gotten to yet. The only question is what that could possibly be..."

He looked around for some more "toys" to play another fun game with Officer Braddock, but he just couldn't find anything interesting. Well, not until he heard a hissing sound a few feet away from him. Eyes widening in curiosity, he was able to quickly hone in on the source of the noise, and when he found it slowly slithering out of the sand and onto the road, he gasped. If that was what he thought it was...

Quickly getting down onto his hands and knees, he took a closer look and giggled in delight. "Well, _hello _there, gorgeous! Where have _you_ been all my life?" He had now found his new toy to play with.

The "toy" in specific was in fact a four-foot long female adult member of the _Crotalus oreganus helleri _subspecies, or as it was widely known there in southwestern California, a Southern Pacific rattlesnake. Its telltale rattle was shaking rapidly at Beyond, warning him to stay away from it. But if anything, it only intrigued the serial killer even more, prompting him to slowly reach a hand towards the dangerous reptile. Its hissing and rattling grew in volume and frequency, informing the man reaching for it that this was his very last chance before appropriate action would be taken on the other party's end to ensure its survival in the face of this dominant predator.

Beyond wasn't to be deterred, though, and when he felt that the snake was about to strike out at him, he quickly reached up and over it to grab the back of its head. Meanwhile, his other hand gripped it just above the rattle, and when he had a firm grip on it with both thin hands, he picked it up and strolled over to the California Highway Patrol officer still lying on the ground. "Now now there, girl," he gently chastised the writhing and hissing reptile in his grasp, "calm down. I have a friend of mine that I want you to meet!"

Nearing the wounded man, he stopped in place when he was standing directly over him. The policeman gradually looked up at him, barely possessing the strength to even do so much as that. Beyond gave him a charming smile - or what _he _considered charming, at least - and held up the snake for the man below him to clearly see it.

"Officer Braddock, I'd like you to meet your new playmate!" He slightly moved the snake in his hands slightly closer to the other man for further emphasis. "She's a _very _fine specimen of _Crotalus oreganus helleri_, if I do say so myself. Now, she's a bit shy, but I have a feeling that you two will get along just _marvelously_! Oh, there are _so many _games that you two can play with each other! In fact, I know one that will help break the ice between the two of you perfectly: a little round of 'it-tag!' Officer Braddock, you're looking a little tired down there, so I'll just let her be 'it' if that's all right with you."

Braddock was able to release a small whimper of fear, eyes wide and lip trembling. "N-No..." he rasped just above a whisper. "Oh please, God, no. _Anything_ but that..."

Beyond was in the process of loosening his grip on the squirming reptile when he froze and quirked an eyebrow, his interest suddenly piqued. That didn't look like just any ordinary reaction to danger. Sure, nearly every person on Earth would be at least _somewhat_ scared at the sight of a venomous snake less than three feet away from them, but there was something in the man's eyes that told Beyond something else. Did this man have... an anxiety disorder in the "phobias" category concerning snakes?

His cheery grin widened into a huge smile as he knelt beside the man. "Officer Braddock, you wouldn't happen to be... _ophidiophobic_, would you?" he asked in an all-too-innocent manner, purposely accenting that specific term.

Braddock was now hyperventilating, neglecting the burning pain of his multiple wounds in favor of the deadly pit viper just a little over a foot away from him. On the inside he was in a full-out panic, and though he tried to hide it as best as he could from showing too much on the outside, his exterior wasn't faring much better. This man... whoever he was, wherever he had come from, he was _sick_.

There was just no other word appropriate enough to describe him.

Beyond slowly inched the snake forward, delighting in the way the man below him gasped and whimpered at every hiss and rattle of the reptile in his hands. He even tried backing away from it, but he was too weak to move more than half an inch backward. To Beyond, killing others was always so much more fun when they were scared of him, and what better way to scare someone in their last moments of life than by exploiting their worst fear and using it against them to completely unravel them?

"J-Jesus Christ," he breathed out as the snake looked him right in the eye whilst hissing.

Beyond chuckled, positioning the rattlesnake just inches away from the man's face. The snake couldn't quite strike out with its fangs, as the way he was holding it prevented it from fully doing so, but as soon as he let go and dropped it onto the human beneath it, the reptile would sink its fangs into the nearest patch of skin it found and inject him with the highly toxic venom it was feared for. Tormenting the police officer for just a moment longer, Beyond dropped the snake onto the other man's chest and backed away to watch the scene from a safe distance.

The very moment Beyond had let go of the venomous animal in his grasp, Officer Braddock had released a rather loud fearful cry at what was undoubtedly about to happen to him. The cry shifted from fear to pain in nearly an instant when the rattlesnake sunk its fangs directly into the skin of his throat. He tried to swat it off of him with the hand that hadn't been blown off by the shotgun, but it was in vain; he was just too weak and it was much too late.

"Oh, Officer Braddock," Beyond commented on the scene a few feet away, "I do believe that you are 'it' now! Don't be afraid to tag her back! I'm sure she won't mind; she seems like she's having a great deal of fun playing with you already!"

Braddock could barely put together a coherent thought at this point, too overcome by fear and the initial effects of the snake's venom to properly think (much less manage a verbal response). He just writhed and incessantly moaned in agony as the volatile toxins went straight to their work, the snake's fangs still lodged in his throat.

"Oh, now don't tell me you're giving up _already_, Officer Braddock! The game only started a few seconds ago and you already look just plain old _exhausted_! I guess she wins, then. Oh well, you know what they say: as long as you had fun, that's all that really matters, right?" He threw his head back and cackled wildly at the late morning sun, gradually turning on his heel to walk back to the Challenger. Waving back to the dying man without looking, he added as an afterthought, "But if you're feeling up to it, you're more than welcome to play with her as much as you like! I wish I could stick around to watch you two for a little while longer, but unfortunately, I really must be getting on my way now. Ta-ta!"

Not giving the writhing man a second glance, Beyond got into the driver's seat of the Challenger and shut the door before starting it up. Taking the muscle car out of park, he pulled back onto the road and sped off down the highway. Turning the radio back on, he nearly forgot that he'd left the station on X-Rock and listened intently to what was currently playing. He couldn't manage to identify it by name, but when the DJ came back on after the song was over, he said that it was "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana.

Ah, Nirvana. They were good, weren't they? Once again, though he wasn't very familiar with music in general, he did recognize the band's name and this particular song, as it had been one of their most famous hits when their second studio album _Nevermind_ had been released back in 1991. Still though, he wished that the DJ would play that Drowning Pool song again.

What was the name of it? Oh, right: "Bodies." Yes, that was it.

Recalling the chorus, he chuckled as he stepped on the gas and pushed the vehicle to its limits. "'_Let the bodies hit the floor_,' indeed!" he sang to himself.

How _very_ ironic.

* * *

**I couldn't actually find out who the acting warden and associate warden were for Pelican Bay in 2009, so I just decided to replace them with fictional characters instead. But now that I think about it, this is kind of similar to what the creators of **_**Death Note**_** did for the U.S. President and Vice President in the manga; rather than using the actual names of America's President and Vice President, they instead replaced them with the original characters President David Hoope and Vice President George Sairas.**

**Also, the prison riot I briefly alluded to near the beginning of this chapter happened on February 23, 2000. When a large group of Latino inmates launched a calculated attack on the black population in the prison yard, an all-out brawl involving fisticuffs and knives ensued, lasting for nearly thirty minutes. Up until this point, the guards had tried to quell the situation with tear gas and pepper spray, but were forced to open fire with their Mini-14's as a last resort measure; one inmate was killed and twelve others were wounded when this happened. Since then, Pelican Bay has been in a sort of "permanent lockdown" state.**

**And I know police officers are supposed to radio in for backup when they get into an "officer down" situation like the one that Sergeant Creighton and Officer Braddock were involved in, but honestly, if you saw an armed, dangerous man shoot a good friend and fellow officer dead right in front of you and you had the chance to arrest him or take him down if he tried to kill you as well, would you take action to control the situation yourself or immediately call for assistance? Everyone's answer will be slightly different, I know, but the main point I'm trying to get across is that you can't really **_**know **_**what you'd do in a stressful, life threatening event like that until you're actually in it yourself.**

**Ah, I almost forgot: an "arrondissement" is basically a part of the city of Paris. It's kind of like a borough or a county here in the U.S. There are twenty of them in Paris in total, and as seen at the beginning of this chapter, the hotel that L and Watari are staying in is located in the sixteenth arrondissement, also known as Arrondissement de Paris. Hope that cleared up any possible confusion.**


End file.
